Among the Arikara Indians a custom prevails of drawing upon the blade of

a canoe or bull-boat paddle such designs as are worn by the chief and

owner to suggest his personal exploits. This has to great extent been

adopted by the Hidatsa and Mandans. The marks are chiefly horseshoes

and crosses, as in Fig. 578, referring to the capture of the enemy’s

ponies and to coups in warfare. The entire tribe being intimately

acquainted with the courage and actions of all its members, imposition

and fraud in the delineation of any character are not attempted, as such

would surely be detected, and the impostor would be ridiculed if not

ostracised.

[Illustration: FIG. 578.--Boat paddle. Arikara.]

The brands upon cattle in Texas and other regions of the United States

where ranches are common illustrate the modern use of property marks.

A collection of these brands made by the writer compares unfavorably

for individuality and ideography with the genuine marks of Indians for

similar purposes.

[Illustration: FIG. 579.--African property mark.]

The following translation from Kunst and Witz der Neger in Das Ausland

(_a_), describing Fig. 579, is inserted for comparison:

Whenever a pumpkin of surprisingly fine appearance is growing,

which promises to furnish a desirable water vase, the proprietor

hurries to distinguish it by cutting into it some special mark with

his knife, and probably superstitious feelings may coöperate in this

act. I have reproduced herewith the best types of such property

marks which I have been able to discover.

[Illustration: FIG. 580.--Owner’s marks, Slesvick.]

Sir John Lubbock (_a_) tells that many of the arrows found at Nydam,

Slesvick, had owner’s marks on them, now reproduced in Fig. 580 as _a_

and _c_, resembling those on the modern Esquimaux arrows shown in the

same figure as _b_.

Prof. Anton Schiefner (_b_) gives a remarkable parallel between the

Runic alphabet and the property marks of the Finns, Lapps, and Samoyeds.

PERSONAL NAMES.

The names of Indians as formerly adopted by or bestowed among themselves

were generally connotive. They very often refer to some animal and

predicate an attribute or position of that animal. On account of their

sometimes objective and sometimes ideographic nature, they almost

invariably admit of being expressed in sign language; and for the

same reason they can readily be portrayed in pictographs. The device

generally adopted by the Dakotan tribes to signify that an object drawn

in connection with a human figure was a totemic or a personal name of

the individual, is to connect that object with the figure by a line

drawn to the head or, more frequently, to the mouth of the latter.

The same tribes make a distinction to manifest that the gesture sign

for an object gestured is intended to be the name of a person and not

introduced for any other purpose by passing the index forward from the

mouth in a direct line after the conclusion of the sign for the object.

This signifies “that is his name,” the name of the person referred to.

As a general rule, Indians were named in early infancy according to a

tribal system, but in later life each generally acquired a new name,

or perhaps several names in succession, from some special exploits or

adventures. Frequently a sobriquet is given which is not complimentary.

All of the names subsequently acquired as well as the original names

are so connected with material objects or with substantive actions as

to be expressible in a graphic picture and also in a pictorial sign.

In the want of alphabet or syllabary they used the same expedient to

distinguish the European invaders. A Virginian was styled Assarigoa,

“Big Knife.” The authorities of Massachusetts were called by the

Iroquois, Kinshon, “a fish,” doubtless in allusion to the cod industry

and the fact that a wooden codfish then hung, as it did long afterwards,

in the state house at Boston, as an emblem of the colony and state.

The determination to use names of this connotive character is shown by

the objective translation, whenever possible, of such European names as

it became necessary for them to introduce frequently into their speech.

William Penn was called Onas, that being the word for feather-quill in

the Mohawk dialect. The name of the second French governor of Canada

was De Montmagny, erroneously translated to be “great mountain,” which

words were correctly translated by the Iroquois into Onontio, and this

expression becoming associated with the title has been applied to all

successive Canadian governors, though the origin having been generally

forgotten, it has been considered to be a metaphorical compliment.

The persistence of titles is shown by the fact that the Abnaki of New

Brunswick to-day call Queen Victoria, “King James,” with a feminine

addition.

Gov. Fletcher was named by the Iroquois Cajenquiragoe, “the great

swift arrow,” not because of his speedy arrival at a critical time, as

has been supposed, but because they had somehow been informed of the

etymology of his name, “arrow-maker” (Fr. fléchier). A notable example

of the adoption of a graphic illustration from a similarity in the sound

of the name to known English words is given in the present paper, in

Fig. 919, where Gen. Maynadier is represented as “many deer.”

While, as before said, some tribes give names to children from

considerations of birth and kinship according to a fixed rule,

others conferred them after solemn deliberation. Even these were not

necessarily permanent. A diminutive form is frequently bestowed by the

affection of the parent. On initiation into one of the cult associations

a name is generally received. Until this is established a warrior is

liable to change his name after every fight or hunt. He will sometimes

only acknowledge the name he has himself assumed, perhaps from a dream

or vision, though he may be habitually called by an entirely different

name. From that reason the same man is sometimes known under several

different epithets. Personal peculiarity, deformity, or accident is sure

to fix a name against which it is vain to struggle. Girls do not often

change names bestowed in their childhood. The same precise name is often

given to different individuals in the same tribe, but not so frequently

in the same band, whereby the inconvenience would be increased. For this

reason it is often necessary to specify the band, sometimes also the

father. For instance, when the writer asked an Indian who Black-Stone,

a chief mentioned in the Lone-Dog winter counts, was, the Indian asked,

first, what tribe was he; then, what band; then, who was his father;

and, except in the case of very noted persons, the identity is not

proved without an answer to these questions. A striking instance of

this plurality of names among the Dakotas was connected with the name

Sitting-Bull, belonging to the leader of the hostile band, while one

of that name was almost equally noted as being the head soldier of the

friendly Dakotas at Red-Cloud Agency.

The northeastern tribes sometimes formally resurrected the name of the

dead and also revived it by adoption. See Jes. Rel., 1639, p. 45, and

1642, p. 53.

Among the peculiarities connected with Indian personal names, far too

many for discussion here, is their avoidance of them in direct address,

terms of kinship or relative age taking their place. Maj. J. W. Powell

states that at one time he had the Kaibab Indians, a small tribe of

northern Arizona, traveling with him. The young chief was called by

white men “Frank.” For several weeks he refused to give his Indian name

and Maj. Powell endeavored to discover it by noticing the term by which

he was addressed by the other Indians, but invariably some kinship

term was employed. One day in a quarrel his wife called him Chuarumpik

(“Yucca-heart”). Subsequently Maj. Powell questioned the young chief

about the matter, who explained and apologized for the great insult

which his wife had given him and said that she was excused by great

provocation. The insult consisted in calling the man by his real name.

Everard F. im Thurn (_g_) gives the following account of the name-system

of the Indians of Guiana, which might have been written with equal truth

about some tribes of North America:

The system under which the Indians have their personal names

is intricate and difficult to explain. In the first place, a name,

which may be called the proper name, is always given to a young

child soon after birth. It is said to be proper that the peaiman,

or medicine-man, should choose and give this name, but, at any

rate now, the naming seems more often left to the parents. The

word selected is generally the name of some plant, bird, or other

natural object. But these names seem of little use, in that owners

have a very strong objection to telling or using them, apparently

on the ground that the name is part of the man, and that he who

knows the name has part of the owner of that name in his power. One

Indian, therefore, generally addresses another only according to

the relationship of the caller and the called, as brother, sister,

father, mother, and so on. These terms, therefore, practically form

the names actually used by Indians amongst themselves. But an Indian

is just as unwilling to tell his proper name to a white man as to

an Indian, and, of course, between the Indian and the white man

there is no relationship the term for which can serve as a proper

name. An Indian, therefore, when he has to do with a European, asks

the latter to give him a name, and if one is given to him always

afterwards uses this. The names given in this way are generally

simple enough--John, Peter, Thomas, and so on.

[Illustration: FIG. 581.--Signature of Running Antelope, Dakota.]

The original of Fig. 581 was made in 1873 by Running Antelope, chief

of the Uncapapa Dakota, in the style of a signature instead of being

attached to his head by a line as is the usual method of the tribe in

designating personal names.

[Illustration: FIG. 582.--Solinger sword-makers’ marks.]

Fig. 582 presents a curious comparison with Figs. 548 and 903 showing

the manner in which the wolf, proverbially a lean animal, was delineated

by Germans in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is taken from

Rudolf Cronau (_b_), whose remarks are translated and condensed as

follows:

_a._ The oldest representation known to me of the “wolf” occurs on a

Gothic sword of the thirteenth century, in the Historical Museum of

Dresden.

_b._ Is more primitive, from a sword of the last half of the fourteenth

century, in the “Berliner Zeughause;” also similar to _c_, of the same

period, from a specimen in the Züricher Zeughaus.

_d_ and _e_. Signatures on two specimens in the collection in Feste

Coburg; _e_ is a rare representation of the figure of the wolf of

1490, in the Germanic Museum at Nürnberg, and still more intricate

(verzwickter) is the drawing _f_ on a Dresden specimen of the year 1559.

A large proportion of the pictographs of several names next to be

presented are from Red-Cloud’s Census, the history of which is as

follows:

A pictorial census was prepared in 1884 under the direction of

Red-Cloud, chief of the Dakota at Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota Territory.

The 289 persons enumerated, many of whom were heads of families, were

the adherents of Red-Cloud and did not represent all the Indians at

that agency. Owing to a disagreement the agent refused to acknowledge

that chief as head of the Indians at the agency, and named another as

the official chief. Many of the Indians exhibited their allegiance to

Red-Cloud by having their names attached in their own pictorial style to

a document showing their votes and number. This filled seven sheets of

ordinary manila paper and was sent to Washington. While in the custody

of Dr. T. A. Bland, of that city, it was loaned by him to the Bureau

of Ethnology to be copied by photography. The different sheets were

apparently drawn by different persons, as the drawings of human heads

vary enough to indicate individuality. This arrangement seems to imply

seven bands or, perhaps, gentes.

Dr. V. T. McGillicuddy, who at the time was Indian agent at Pine

Ridge Agency, Dakota, in correspondence gives the impression that the

several pictographs representing names were attached as signatures by

the several individuals to a subscription list for Dr. Bland, before

mentioned, who was the editor of The Council Fire, in support of that

publication and with an agreement that each should give 25 cents. The

document in that view would be a subscription list, but the subscribers

were, in fact, the adherents of Red-Cloud. Whatever was the motive for

this collection of pictured names, its interest consists in the mode

of their portrayal, together with the assurance that they were the

spontaneous and genuine work of the Indians concerned.

In addition to the personal names which immediately follow, a

considerable number of the 289 pictographic names appear elsewhere in

this paper under the various heads of Tribal Designations, Ideography,

Conventionalizing, Customs, special Comparison, etc.

Interspersed among the personal names taken from the above mentioned

list are others selected from the Oglala Roster, the origin of which is

explained above, and the several winter counts of The-Flame, The-Swan,

American-Horse, and Cloud-Shield, mentioned, respectively, in Chap. X,

Sec. 2. The authority is in each case attached to the pictograph with

the translation of the Indian name, and in some cases with the name in

the original.

Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, in Vol. XXXIV of the Proceedings of the American

Association for the Advancement of Science and in the American

Anthropologist for July, 1890, gives valuable notes on the subject of

Indian personal names and also has made oral suggestions to the present

writer. Some of those may be considered with reference to the list now

presented. He thinks that the frequent use of color names is from a

mythical or symbolic significance attributed to the colors. Also the

word translated “iron,” or “metal,” is connected with the color blue,

the object called iron being always painted blue when colors are used,

and that color is mystically connected with the water powers of the

Dakotan mythology. The frequent use of the terms “Little” and “Big,”

with or without graphic differentiation, may be as the terms young

and old, junior and senior, are employed by civilized people, but the

expressions in other cases may refer to the size of the animals seen in

the visions of fasting which have determined the names.

Explanations on parts of the pictographs not strictly connected with

the personal name are annexed for the reason before indicated and the

objects connected by the names are to some extent arranged in classes.

OBJECTIVE.

In the figures immediately following the delineation is objective. It is

sometimes interesting to note the different modes of representing the

same object or concept.

[Illustration: FIG. 583.]

Fig. 583.--High-Back-Bone, a very brave Oglala, was killed by the

Shoshoni. They also shot another man, who died after he reached home.

American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1870-’71.

[Illustration: FIG. 584.]

Fig. 584.--High-Back-Bone was killed in a fight with the Snakes

(Shoshoni). Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1870-’71. White-Cow-Killer

calls it “High-Back-Bone-killed-by-Snake-Indians winter.”

[Illustration: FIG. 585.]

Fig. 585.--A Minneconjou Dakota named Broken-Back was killed by the Crow

Indians at Black Hills. Swan’s Winter Count, 1848-’49.

[Illustration: FIG. 586.]

Fig. 586.--Long-Hair was killed. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1786-’87.

To what tribe he belonged is not known. The tribes, such as the Crows,

in which it is a tribal custom to wear the hair to an enormous length,

eke it out by artificial means and ornament it with beads and streamers.

In this case the length of the hair seems to have been a personal

peculiarity, not a tribal mark.

[Illustration: FIG. 587.]

Fig. 587.--They killed the long-haired man in a fight with

the Cheyennes while on an expedition to avenge the death of

The-Man-Who-Owns-The-Flute, who was killed by the Cheyennes the year

before. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1796-’97. This may be the same

man who is referred to in the last preceding figure, as the expression

“killed,” given in translation by the interpreters, does not always mean

wounded to death, but severely wounded--Hibernicé “kilt.” Here the scalp

shows the length of the hair, and the victim is called a Cheyenne.

[Illustration: FIG. 588.]

Fig. 588.--The Stabber. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1783-’84. The man’s

name is suggested by the spear in the body over his head, which is

connected with his mouth by a line.

[Illustration: FIG. 589.]

Fig. 589.--Stabber. Red-Cloud’s Census. This figure is substantially the

same as the preceding, though more rude.

[Illustration: FIG. 590.]

Fig. 590.--Red-Shirt. Red-Cloud’s Census. This and the following figure

exhibit the name, the first showing only the garment and the second

exhibiting it as worn.

[Illustration: FIG. 591.]

Fig. 591.--Red-Shirt, a Dakota, was killed by the Crows while looking

for his ponies near Old Woman’s fork. American-Horse’s Winter Count,

1810-’11. The bow over the head and the absence of scalp-lock signifies

death by the arrow of enemies.

[Illustration: FIG. 592.]

Fig. 592.--Chief Red-Cloud. Red-Cloud’s Census. This and the next figure

give two modes of expressing the name of the celebrated chief, Red-Cloud.

[Illustration: FIG. 593.]

Fig. 593.--Three-Stars (General Crook) took Red-Cloud’s young men to

help him fight the Cheyennes. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1876-’77.

[Illustration: FIG. 594.]

Fig. 594.--Caught-the-Enemy. Red-Cloud’s Census. The enemy seems to be

caught by his hair.

[Illustration: FIG. 595.]

Fig. 595.--Black-Rock was killed by the Crows. His brother, whose

name he had taken, was killed by the Crows three years before.

American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1809-’10.

[Illustration: FIG. 596.]

Fig. 596.--Bird, a white trader, was burned to death by the Cheyennes.

Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1864-’65. He is surrounded by flames in the

picture. His name was probably Bird, which was pictorially represented

as usual.

[Illustration: FIG. 597.]

Fig. 597.--Red-Lake’s house, which he had recently built, was destroyed

by fire, and he was killed by the accidental explosion of some powder.

American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1831-’32. This figure is introduced here

in connection with the simple fire on the one preceding to show the

artistic portrayal separately of a steady flame and of an explosion.

[Illustration: FIG. 598.]

Fig. 598.--Two-Face, an Oglala, was badly burnt by the explosion of his

powder horn. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1860-’61. Here is another

view of the explosion of gunpowder.

[Illustration: FIG. 599.]

Fig. 599.--A Two-Kettle Dakota, named The-Breast, died. Swan’s Winter

Count, 1836-’37.

Mato Sapa says: A Two-Kettle, named The-Breast, died. This is the same

character as is given elsewhere for abundance, plenty of buffalo. But

here it has a wholly personal application.

[Illustration: FIG. 600.]

Fig. 600.--Left-Handed-Big-Nose was killed by the Shoshoni.

American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1839-’40. His left arm is represented

extended, and his nose is grotesquely conspicuous.

[Illustration: FIG. 601.]

Fig. 601.--Roman-Nose. Red-Cloud’s Census. The large and aquiline nose

is exhibited, which was very liberally translated “Roman Nose,” and the

term became the popular name of a celebrated chief of the Dakotas.

[Illustration: FIG. 602.]

Fig. 602.--Torn-Belly. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 603.]

Fig. 603.--Spotted-Face. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 604.]

Fig. 604.--Licks-with-his-tongue. Red-Cloud’s Census. The tongue is

exaggerated as well as protruded, and without explanation might be

mistaken for a large object bitten off for eating in a gluttonous manner.

[Illustration: FIG. 605.]

Fig. 605.--Knock-a-hole-in-the-head. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 606.]

Fig. 606.--Broken-Leg-Duck, an Oglala, went to a Crow village to steal

horses and was killed. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1786-’87. A line

connects the bird, one of whose legs is out of order, with the mouth of

the man’s head, which is without scalp-lock.

[Illustration: FIG. 607.]

Fig. 607.--Antelope-Dung broke his neck while surrounding buffalo.

American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1853-’54.

[Illustration: FIG. 608.]

Fig. 608.--Antelope-Dung broke his neck while running antelope.

Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1853-’54. His head is the only part of his

body that is shown, and it is bleeding copiously. Without the preceding

figure this one would not be intelligible.

[Illustration: FIG. 609.]

Fig. 609.--Broken-Arrow fell from his horse while running buffalo and

broke his neck. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1859-’60.

[Illustration: FIG. 610.]

Fig. 610.--Sits-like-a-Woman. Red-Cloud’s Census. This person is

also portrayed in a recent Dakota record, where the character is

represented by the “woman seated” only. The name of this man is not

“Sits-like-a-Woman,” but High-Wolf--shunkmanitu (wolf), wankantuya (up

above). This is an instance of giving one name in a pictograph as if the

correct or official name and retaining another by which the man is known

in camp to his companions.

[Illustration: FIG. 611.]

Fig. 611.--The-Man-Who-Owns-the-Flute was killed by the Cheyennes.

American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1795-’96. His flute is represented in

front of him with sounds coming from it. A bullet mark is on his neck.

In reference to this character, see Chap. XX, Sec. 2.

[Illustration: FIG. 612.]

Fig. 612.--Smoking-Bear. Red-Cloud’s Census. The bear does not appear

to be smoking the pipe, but the smoke of the latter is mounting to the

animal’s neck, so the bear is smoking in a passive sense.

[Illustration: FIG. 613.]

Fig. 613.--Biting-Bear. Red-Cloud’s Census. The bear seems to be biting

at the bark on the limb of a tree, which shows the marks of his claws.

This animal, as is well known, eats the bark of certain trees.

METAPHORIC.

[Illustration: FIG. 614.]

Fig. 614--Wolf-Ear. Red-Cloud’s Census. The designation of the ear of a

wolf probably refers to size, and is substantially the same as big-ear.

[Illustration: FIG. 615.]

Fig. 615.--Fighting-Cuss. Red-Cloud’s Census. This warrior appears,

while only armed with a lance, to be successfully fighting an enemy who

has a gun.

[Illustration: FIG. 616.]

Fig. 616.--Man-with-hearts. Red-Cloud’s Census. There is no information

as to the significance of this drawing, but it is conjectured that the

warrior had eaten the heart of one or more enemies, as was frequently

done. This was not cannibalism, but a superstitious and sometimes

ceremonial performance, by which the eater acquired the qualities of the

victim, and in this case would be supposed to have more than one heart,

i. e., the courage attributed to those hearts.

[Illustration: FIG. 617.]

Fig. 617.--Takes-the-Gun. Red-Cloud’s Census. It appears from the

name that the man is not handling his own gun, but is on the point of

grasping and taking away the weapon of another person.

[Illustration: FIG. 618.]

Fig. 618.--Jola, Whistler. The Oglala Roster. This is one of the

instances where the usual rule in the Oglala Roster, of representing the

name above the head, is abandoned, because it is essential to connect

it with the mouth to express the whistle. Without this arrangement the

musical instrument would not be suggested.

[Illustration: FIG. 619.]

Fig. 619.--American-Horse’s Winter Count for 1872-’73 gives the

pictograph of Whistler, also named Little-Bull. Both of his names

appear; that of Whistler is expressed by the sounds blown from the

mouth. He whistles without an instrument.

[Illustration: FIG. 620.]

Fig. 620.--Ceji, Tongue. The Oglala Roster. This man was not necessarily

an orator, but probably the nickname was given in derision as orally

“tonguey” might be. Again the line is from the crown of the head to the

protruded tongue.

[Illustration: FIG. 621.]

Fig. 621.--Canku-sapa, Black-Road. The Oglala Roster. This road, on

which horse tracks are shown, is distinguished from that of the head

chief Big-Road (_a_, on Pl. XXVI) as being much more narrow and obscure,

therefore black.

ANIMALS.

The following figures are selected from a large number to show the

variety of animals, and the differentiation by marks and attitudes found

necessary to present the names. A similar multiplication of the animals

by different coloration is exhibited, but can not be repeated in the

text figures.

[Illustration: FIG. 622.]

Fig. 622.--Bob-tail-Horse. Red-Cloud’s Census. The translation of the

Indian’s name is rather liberal, but the device is graphic.

[Illustration: FIG. 623.]

Fig. 623.--Two-Eagles. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 624.]

Fig. 624.--Minneconjou Dakota chief, named Swan, died. The-Swan’s Winter

Count, 1866-’67. This bird is supposed to be swimming on the water, its

legs not being visible.

[Illustration: FIG. 625.]

Fig. 625.--Bear-Looks-Back. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 626.]

Fig. 626.--Mouse. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 627.]

Fig. 627.--Badger, a Dakota, was killed by enemies, as shown by the

absence of his scalp. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1796-’97.

[Illustration: FIG. 628.]

Fig. 628.--Spider was killed (stabbed) in a fight with the Pawnees.

American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1861-’62. An immense effusion of blood is

depicted flowing from the wound.

[Illustration: FIG. 629.]

Fig. 629.--Spotted-Elk. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 630.]

Fig. 630.--Spotted-Horse. Red-Cloud’s Census.

[Illustration: FIG. 631.]

Fig. 631.--White-Goose was killed in an attack made by some enemies.

Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1789-’90. White-Cow-Killer calls it,

“Goose-Feather-killed winter.”

[Illustration: FIG. 632.]

Fig. 632.--Maka-gleska, Spotted-Skunk. The Oglala Roster. The special

characteristic of the animal is suggested.

[Illustration: FIG. 633.]

Fig. 633.--Hoka-qin, Carried-the-Badger. The Oglala Roster. The design

explains itself. The animal is exaggerated in size and some of its

features are accentuated.

[Illustration: FIG. 634.]

Fig. 634.--Kangi-topa, Four-Crows. The Oglala Roster. The four crows are

cawing forth such explanation as they can give of the reasons, probably

coming from visions, why they were used to form a name for an Oglala.

VEGETABLE.

The products of the vegetable kingdom are not often used by the Dakotas

in their personal designations. The three following figures, however,

are examples of such use.

[Illustration: FIG. 635.]

Fig. 635.--Tree-in-the-Face. Red-Cloud’s Census. This man probably

painted a tree on his face.

[Illustration: FIG. 636.]

Fig. 636.--Leaves. Red-Cloud’s Census. This and the following figure

represent two different men of the same name and the devices are

distinctly individual.

[Illustration: FIG. 637.]

Fig. 637.--Leaves. Red-Cloud’s Census.

With regard to the errors arising from bad translation, an

example may be given, relating to a name the explanation of which

has often been asked. A former chief of the Oglala was called

“Old-man-afraid-of-his-Horses,” by the whites, and his son is known

as “Young-man-afraid-of-his-Horses.” A common interpretation about

“afraid-of-his-horses” is that the man valued his horses so much that

he was afraid of losing them. The representative of the name, however,

stated to the writer that the correct name was Ta-shunka Kokipapi,

and that the true meaning was “He-whose-horse-they-fear”; literally

“His-horse-they-fear-it.”

A large number of pictorially rendered Indian names attached to deeds

and treaties have been published, e. g., in Documents relating to the

Colonial History of New York (_b_). Few of them are of interest, and

they generally suggest the assistance of practiced penmen. In the

collections mentioned some of the Dutch marks are in the same general

style as those of the Indians.

Mr. P. W. Norris, late of the Bureau of Ethnology, had a buffalo robe

containing a record of exploits, which was drawn by Black-Crow, a

Dakota warrior. The successful warrior is represented in each instance

upright, the accompanying figure being always in a recumbent posture,

representing the enemy who was slain. The peculiar feature of these

pictographs is that instead of depicting the victim’s personal name with

a connecting line, the object denoting his name is placed above the head

of the victor in each instance, and a line connects the character with

his mouth. The latter thus seems to proclaim the name of his victim. A

pipe is also figured between the victor and the vanquished, showing that

he is entitled to smoke a pipe of celebration.

A copy of the whole record was shown to the Mdewakantanwan Dakotas, near

Fort Snelling, Minnesota, in 1883, and the character reproduced in Fig.

638, about which there was the most doubt, was explained as signifying

“many tongues,” or Loud-Talker.

[Illustration: FIG. 638.--Loud-Talker.]

The circle at the end of the line running from the mouth contains a

number of lanceolate forms, one-half of each of which is black, the

other white. They have the appearance of feathers, but also may

represent tongues and signify voice, sound issuing from the mouth,

and correspond in some respect to those drawn by the Mexicans with

that significance, of which examples are given in this work, Chap. XX,

Sec. 2. The considerable number of these tongue-like figures suggests

intensity and denotes loud voice, or, as given literally, “loud talker,”

that being the name of the victim.

It is, however, to be noted that “Shield,” an Oglala Dakota, contends

that the character signifies Feather-Shield, the name of a warrior

formerly living at the Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota.

Designation of an object, as a name, by means of a connecting line

is mentioned in Kingsborough (_a_). Pedro de Alvarado, one of the

companions of Cortez, was red-headed. Designating him, the Mexicans

called him Tonatihu, the “Sun,” and in their picture-writing his name

was represented by their conventional character for the sun attached to

his person by a line.

Other examples are now presented both of the linear connection and of

the iconographic figuration by the old Mexicans.

In Kingsborough (_b_) is a pictograph of Chimalpopoca, which name

signifies a smoking shield, here reproduced as Fig. 639 (_a_). The

smoking shield is connected with the head by a line, and the form of

smoke should be noticed in comparison with the representation of flame

and of voice by the same pictors.

[Illustration: FIG. 639.--Mexican names.]

The same authority and volume, p. 135 (illustration in Vol. I, Pt. 4,

Pl. V), gives the name and illustration (reproduced in the same Fig.,

_b_) of Ytzcohuatl, the signification of which name is a serpent armed

with knives. The knives refer to the Itzli stone.

In the same volume, p. 137, is the name Face of Water, with the

corresponding illustration in Vol. I, Pt. 4, Pl. 12 (here Pl. XII _c_).

The drops of water are falling profusely from the face.

CHAPTER XIV.

RELIGION.

The most surprising fact relating to the North American Indians, which

until lately had not been realized, is that they habitually lived

in and by religion to a degree comparable with the old Israelites

under the theocracy. This was sometimes ignored, and sometimes denied

in terms, by many of the early missionaries and explorers. The

aboriginal religion was not their religion, and therefore was not

recognized to have an existence or was pronounced to be satanic. Many

pictorial representations are given in this chapter of concepts of the

supernatural, as operative in this world, which is popularly styled

religion when it is not condemned as superstition. The pictographic

examples presented from the Siouan stock are generally explained as

they appear. Those from the Ojibwa and other tribes are not so fully

discussed. It is therefore proper to mention explicitly that, in the

several localities where the tribes are now found which have been the

least affected by civilization, they in a marked degree live a life of

religious practices, and their shamans have a profound influence over

their social character. A careful study of these people has already

given indication of facts corresponding in interest with those which

have recently surprised the world as reported by Mr. Cushing from among

the Zuñi and Dr. Matthews from among the Navajo.

The most extensive and important publications on the subject have been

made by Maj. J. W. Powell (_a_), Director of the Bureau of Ethnology.

These have been made at many times and in various shapes, from the

Outlines of the Philosophy of the North American Indians, read in 1876,

to the present year.

A considerable amount of detail respecting religion appears in Chap. IX,

Sections 4 and 5, in the present work.

The discussion of the religions and religious practices of the tribes

of America is not germane to the present work, except so far as it

elucidates their pictographs. In that connection it may be mentioned

that the tribes of Indians in the territory of the United States, which

have been converted to Christianity, seem not to have spontaneously

turned their pictographic skill to the representation of objects

connected with the religion to which they have been converted. This

might be explained by the statement, often true, that the converts

have been taught to read and write the languages of their teachers in

religion, and therefore ceased to be pictographers. But where they have

not been so instructed, indeed have been encouraged to retain their own

language and to write it in a special manner supposed to be adapted to

their ancient methods, the same result is observed. The Micmacs still

with delight draw on bark their stories of Glooscap and Lox, and scenes

from the myths of their old faith, but unless paid as for a piece

of work, do not produce Christian pictures. This assertion does not

conflict with the account of the “Micmac hieroglyphs” in Chap. XIX, Sec.

2. All the existing specimens of these were made by Europeans, and the

action of the first Indian converts, which was imitated by Europeans,

was the simple use of their old scheme of mnemotechny to assist in

memorizing the lessons required of them by missionaries. It is also to

be noted that some tribes for convenience have adopted Christian emblems

into their own ceremonial pictographs (see Fig. 159).

It has been found convenient to divide this chapter into the following

sections: (1) Symbols of the supernatural. (2) Myths and mythic animals.

(3) Shamanism. (4) Charms and amulets. (5) Religious ceremonies. (6)

Mortuary practices.

SECTION 1.

SYMBOLS OF THE SUPERNATURAL.

This group shows the modes of expressing the idea of the supernatural,

holy, sacred, or, more correctly, the mystic or unknown (perhaps

unknowable), that being the true translation of the Dakota word waka^n.

The concept of “crazy,” in the sense of influenced by superior powers

or inspired, is in the same connection. Not only the North American

Indians, but many tribes of Asia and Africa, consider a demented

person to be sacred and therefore inviolable. The spiral line is but

a pictorial representation of the sign for waka^n, which is: With its

index finger extended and pointing upward, or all the fingers extended,

back of hand outward, move the right hand from just in front of the

forehead spirally upward nearly to arm’s length from left to right.

[Illustration: FIG. 640.]

Fig. 640.--Crazy-Dog, a Dakota, carried the pipe around and took the war

path. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1838-’39.

The waved or spiral lines denote crazy or mystic, as above explained.

[Illustration: FIG. 641.]

Fig. 641.--Crazy-Horse says his prayers and goes on the war-path.

Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1844-’45.

The waved lines are used again for crazy. “Says his prayers,” which

are the words of the interpreter, would be more properly rendered by

referring to the ceremonies of organizing a war party.

[Illustration: FIG. 642.]

Fig. 642.--Crazy-Horse’s band left the Spotted-Tail agency (at Camp

Sheridan, Nebraska) and went north, after Crazy-Horse was killed at Fort

Robinson, Nebraska. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1877-’78.

Hoofprints and lodge-pole tracks run northward from the house, which

represents the agency. That the horse is “crazy” is shown by the waved

or spiral lines on his body, running from his nose, hoof, and forehead.

The band is named from its deceased chief, and is designated by his

personal device, a distinct and unusual departure among Indians tending

towards the evolution of band or party emblems unconnected with the

gentile system.

[Illustration: FIG. 643.]

Fig. 643.--Medicine. Red-Cloud’s Census. The full rendering should be

medicine-man or shaman. The waving lines above the head again signify

mystic or sacred, and are made in gesture in a similar manner as that

before described, with some differentiation, for prayer or incantation.

The shut or half-closed eye may be noted.

[Illustration: FIG. 644.]

Fig. 644.--Medicine-man. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is a rude variant of

the foregoing.

[Illustration: FIG. 645.]

Fig. 645.--Crazy-Head. Red-Cloud’s Census. The wavy lines here form

a circle around the head to suggest the personal name as well as the

quality.

[Illustration: FIG. 646.]

Fig. 646.--Medicine-Buffalo. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is probably an

albino buffalo, and may refer to the man who possessed one who is

venerated therefor. See Chap. XIII.

[Illustration: FIG. 647.]

Fig. 647.--Kangi-waka^n, Sacred-Crow. The Oglala Roster. The lines above

the bird’s head signify sacred, mystic, sometimes termed “medicine,” as

above.

[Illustration: FIG. 648.]

Fig. 648.--White-Elk. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is an albino elk which

partakes in sacredness with the albino buffalo. The elk was an important

article of food, though not so much a reliance as the buffalo, and the

practices relating to the latter would naturally, and in fact did,

measurably, apply to the former.

[Illustration: FIG. 649.]

Fig. 649.--The Dakotas had all the mini waka^n (spirit water, or whisky)

they could drink. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1821-’22. A barrel with

a waved or spiral line running from it represents the whisky, the waved

line signifying waka^n, or spirit, in the double sense of the English

word.

[Illustration: FIG. 650.]

Fig. 650.--Cloud-Bear, a Dakota, killed a Dakota, who was a long

distance off, by throwing a bullet from his hand and striking him in the

heart. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1824-’25. The spiral line is used

for waka^n.

[Illustration: FIG. 651.]

Fig. 651.--A Minneconjou clown, well known to the Indians. The-Flame’s

Winter Count, 1787-’88. His accouterments are fantastic. The character

is explained by Battiste Good’s Winter Count for the same year as

follows:

“Left-the-heyoka-man-behind winter.” A certain man was heyoka, that

is, in a disordered frame of mind, and went about the village bedecked

with feathers singing to himself, and while so joined a war party. On

sighting the enemy the party fled and called to him to turn back also,

but as he was heyoka he construed everything that was said to him as

meaning the very opposite, and, therefore, instead of turning back he

went forward and was killed. This conception of a man under superhuman

influence being obliged to believe or speak the reverse of the truth is

not uncommon among the Indians. See Leland (_a_) Algonquin Legends.

[Illustration: FIG. 652.--Dream. Ojibwa.]

Fig. 652, from Copway (_b_), gives the representation of “dream”. The

recumbent human figure naturally suggests sleep, and the wavy lines to

the head indicate the spiritual or mythic concept of a dream.

[Illustration: FIG. 653.--Religious symbols.]

Fig. 653: _a_ is an Ojibwa pictograph taken from Schoolcraft

representing “medicine man,” “meda.” With these horns and spiral may be

collated _b_ in the same figure, which portrays the ram-headed Egyptian

god Knuphis, or Chnum, the spirit, in a shrine on the boat of the sun,

canopied by the serpent goddess Ranno, who is also seen facing him

inside the shrine. This is reproduced from Cooper’s Serpent Myths (_a_).

The same deity is represented in Champollion (_a_) as reproduced in Fig.

653, _c_.

_d_ is an Ojibwa pictograph found in Schoolcraft (_i_) and given as

“power.” It corresponds with the Absaroka sign for “medicine man” made

by passing the extended and separated index and second finger of the

right hand upward from the forehead, spirally, and is considered to

indicate “superior knowledge.” Among the Otos, as part of the sign with

the same meaning, both hands are raised to the side of the head and the

extended indices pressing the temples.

_e_ is also an Ojibwa pictograph from Schoolcraft, same volume, Pl.

59, and is said to signify Meda’s power. It corresponds with another

sign made for “medicine man” by the Absaroka and Comanche, viz, the

hand passed upward before the forehead, with index loosely extended.

Combined with the sign for “sky” it means knowledge of superior matters,

spiritual power.

In many parts of the United States and Canada rocks and large stones

are found which generally were decorated with paint and were regarded

as possessing supernatural power, yet, so far as ascertained, were not

directly connected with any special personage of Indian mythology.

One of the earliest accounts of these painted stones was made by the

Abbé de Gallinée and is published in Margry (_d_). The Abbé, with La

Salle’s party in 1669, found on the Detroit river, six leagues above

Lake Erie, a large stone remotely resembling a human figure and painted,

the face made with red paint. All the Indians of the region--Algonquian

and Iroquoian--believed that the rock-image could give safety in the

passage of the lake, if properly placated, and they never ventured on

the passage without offering to it presents of skins, food, tobacco, or

like sacrifices. La Salle’s party, which had met with misfortune, seems

to have been so much impressed with the evil powers of the image that

they broke it into pieces.

Keating’s Long (_e_) tells:

At one of the landing places of the St. Peters river, in the

Sioux country, we observed a block of granite of about eighty pounds

weight; it was painted red and covered with a grass fillet, in which

were placed twists of tobacco offered up in sacrifice. Feathers were

stuck in the ground all round the stone.

Mrs. Eastman (_a_) also describes a stone painted red, which the Dakotas

called grandfather, in reverence, at or near which they placed as

offerings their most valuable articles. They also killed dogs and horses

before it as sacrifices.

In “A study of Pueblo Architecture,” by Victor Mindeleff, in the Eighth

Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, is an account of the cosmology

of the Pueblos as symbolized in their architecture and figured devices,

as follows:

In the beginning all men lived together in the lowest depths,

in a region of darkness and moisture; their bodies were misshapen

and horrible and they suffered great misery, moaning and bewailing

continually. Through the intervention of Myuingwa (a vague

conception known as the god of the interior) and of Baholikonga (a

crested serpent of enormous size, the genius of water) “the old

man” obtained a seed from which sprang a magic growth of cane.

It penetrated through a crevice in the roof overhead and mankind

climbed to a higher plane. A dim light appeared in this stage and

vegetation was produced. Another magic growth of cane afforded

the means of rising to a still higher plane, on which the light

was brighter; vegetation was reproduced and the animal kingdom

was created. The final ascent to this present or fourth plane was

effected by similar magic growths and was led by mythic twins,

according to some of the myths, by climbing a great pine tree, in

others by climbing the cane, _Phragmites communis_, the alternate

leaves of which afforded steps as of a ladder, and in still others

it is said to have been a rush, through the interior of which the

people passed up to the surface. The twins sang as they pulled the

people out, and when their song was ended no more were allowed to

come, and hence many more were left below than were permitted to

come above; but the outlet through which mankind came has never

been closed, and Myuingwa sends through it the germs of all living

things. It is still symbolized by the peculiar construction of the

hatchway of the kiva and in the designs on the sand altars in these

underground chambers, by the unconnected circle painted on pottery,

and by devices on basketry and other textile fabrics.

SECTION 2.

MYTHS AND MYTHIC ANIMALS.

Among the hundreds of figures and characters seen by the present writer

on the slate rocks that abound on the shores and islands of Kejimkoojik

Lake, Queen’s county, Nova Scotia, described in Chap. II, Sec. 1, there

appears a class of incised figures illustrating the religious myths

and folk lore of the Indian tribes which inhabited the neighborhood

within historic times. It is probable that in other parts of America,

and, indeed, in all lands, the pictographic impulses and habits of the

people have induced them to represent the scenes and characters of their

myths on such rocks as were adapted to the purpose, as they are known

to have done on bark, skins, and other objects. But these exhibitions

of the favorite or prevalent myths in the shape of petroglyphs, though

doubtless existing, have seldom been understood and deciphered by modern

students. Sometimes they have not originally been sufficiently distinct

or have become indefinite by age, and frequently their artists have been

people of languages, religions, and customs different from the tribes

now or lately found in the localities and from whom the significance

of the petroglyphs has been sought in vain. The conditions of the

characters at Kejimkoojik, now mentioned, are perhaps unique. They are

drawn with great distinctness and sufficient skill, so that when traced

on the rocks they immediately struck the present writer as illustrative

of the myths and tales of the Abnaki. Many of these myths had been

recently repeated to him by Mrs. W. Wallace Brown, of Calais, Maine, the

highest authority in that line of study, and by other persons visited in

Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and in Cape Breton and Prince Edwards

Islands, who were familiar with the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Amalecite,

and Micmac tribes. A number of these myths and tales had before been

collected in variant forms by Mr. Charles G. Leland (_a_). It is a

more important and convincing fact that the printed impressions of the

figures now presented were at once recognized by individual Indians of

the several Abnaki tribes above mentioned to have the signification

explained below. It is also to be noted that these Abnaki have preserved

the habit of making illustrations from their stories by scratchings and

scrapings on birch bark. The writer saw several such figures on bark

ornaments and utensils which exhibited parts of the identical myths

indicated in the petroglyphs but not the precise scenes or characters

depicted on the rocks. The selection of themes and their treatment

were not conventional and showed some originality and individuality

both in design and execution. From the appearance and surroundings of

the rock drawings now specially under discussion they were probably of

considerable antiquity and suggested that the Micmacs, who doubtless

were the artists, had gained the idea of practicing art for itself, not

merely using the devices of pictography for practical purposes, such as

to record the past or to convey information.

[Illustration: FIG. 654.--Myth of Pokinsquss.]

Fig. 654 is one of the drawings mentioned, and indicates one episode

among the very numerous adventures of Glooscap, the Hero-God of the

Abnaki, several of which are connected with a powerful witch called by

Mr. Leland Pook-jin-skwess, or the Evil Pitcher, and by Mrs. W. Wallace

Brown, Pokinsquss, the Jug Woman. She is also called the toad woman,

from one of her transformations, and often appeared in a male form to

fight Glooscap after he had disdained her love proffered as a female.

Among the multitude of tales on this general theme, one narrates how

Glooscap was at one time a Pogumk, or the small animal of the weasel

family commonly called Fisher (Mustela Canadensis), also translated as

Black Cat, and was the son of the chief of a village of Indians who were

all Black Cats, his mother being a bear. Doubtless these animal names

and the attributes of the animals in the tales refer to the origin of

totemic divisions among the Abnaki. Pokinsquss was also of the Black Cat

village, and hated the chief and contrived long how she could kill him

and take his place. Now, one day when the camp had packed up to travel,

the witch asked the chief Pogumk to go with her to gather gull’s eggs;

and they went far away in a canoe to an island where the gulls were

breeding and landed there, and then she hid herself to spy, and having

found out that the Pogumk was Glooscap, ran to the canoe and paddled

away singing:

Nikhed-ha Pogumk min nekuk,

Netswil sāgāmawin!

Which being translated from the Passamaquoddy language means--

I have left the Black Cat on an island,

I shall be chief of the Fishers now!

The continuation of the story is found in many variant shapes. In one of

them Glooscap’s friend the Fox came to his rescue, as through Glooscap’s

m’toulin or magic power he heard the song of appeal though miles away

beyond forests and mountains. In others the Sea Serpent appears in

answer to the Hero-God’s call, and the latter, mounting the serpent’s

back, takes a load of stones as his cargo to throw at the serpent’s

horns when the latter did not swim fast enough. In the figure the island

is shown at the lower right hand as a roundish outline with Glooscap

inside. The small round objects to the left are probably the gull’s

eggs, but may be the stimulating stones above mentioned. Pokinsquss

stands rejoicing in the stern of a canoe, which points in the wavy water

away from the island. The device to the left of the witch may be the

dismantled camp of the Black Cats, and the one to her right is perhaps

where the Fox “beyond forests and mountains” heard Glooscap’s song of

distress.

[Illustration: FIG. 655.--Myth of Atosis.]

Fig. 655, another specimen of the same class, refers to one of the tales

about At-o-sis, the Snake, who was the lover of a beautiful Abnaki

woman. He appeared to her from out the surface of a lake as a young

hunter with a large shining silvery plate on his heart and covered with

brilliant white brooches as fish are covered with scales. He provided

her with all animals for food. The bow attached to the semi-human head

in the illustration may refer to this expertness in the chase. The head

of the female figure is covered or masked by one of the insignia of rank

and power mentioned in Chap. XIII, Sec. 2. She became the mother of the

Black Snakes.

[Illustration: FIG. 656.--Myth of the Weasel girls.]

Fig. 656, from the same locality, shows simply a crane, and a woman who

bears in her hand two branches; but this is a sufficient indication

of the tale of the Weasel girls, who had come down from Star-land by

means of a diminishing hemlock tree, and flying from Lox had come to a

broad river which they could not cross. But in the edge of the water

stood motionless a large crane, or the Tum-gwo-lig-unach, who was the

ferryman. “Now, truly, this is esteemed to be the least beautiful of

all the birds, for which cause he is greedy of good words and fondest

of flattery. And of all beings there were none who had more bear’s oil

ready to annoint every one’s hair with--that is to say, more compliments

ready for everybody--than the Weasels. So, seeing the Crane, they sang:

Wa wela quis kip pat kasqu',

Wa wela quis kip pat kasqu'.

The Crane has a very beautiful long neck,

The Crane has a very beautiful long neck.

“This charmed the old ferryman very much, and when they said: ‘please,

grandfather, hurry along,’ he came quickly. Seeing this, they began to

chant in chorus sweetly as the Seven Stars themselves:

Wa wela quig nat kasqu',

Wa wela quig nat kasqu'.

The crane has very beautiful long legs,

The crane has very beautiful long legs.

“Hearing this the good crane wanted more; so when they asked him to

give them a lift across he answered, slowly, that to do so he must

be well paid, but that good praise would answer as well. Now they

who had abundance of this and to spare for everybody were these very

girls. ‘Have I not a beautiful form?’ he inquired; and they both cried

aloud: ‘Oh, uncle, it is indeed beautiful!’ ‘And my feathers?’ ‘Ah,

_pegeakopchu_.’ ‘Beautiful and straight feathers, indeed!’ ‘And have I

not a charming long, straight, neck?’ ‘Truly our uncle has it straight

and long.’ ‘And will ye not acknowledge, oh maidens, that my legs are

fine?’ ‘Fine! oh, uncle, they are perfection. Never in this life did we

see such legs!’ So, being well pleased, the crane put them across, and

then the two little weasels scampered like mice into the bush.”

Though but one woman figure is drawn, the two boughs borne by her

suggest the two weasel girls, who had come down the hemlock tree and had

also been water fairies until their garments were stolen by the marten,

and thereupon they had lost their fairy powers and become women in a

manner at once reminding of the Old World swan-maiden myth.

[Illustration: FIG. 657.--The Giant Bird Kaloo.]

Fig. 657 is a sketch of the Giant Bird Kaloo, or, in the literation of

Mr. Leland, Culloo. He was the most terrible of all creatures. He it

was who caught up the mischievous Lox in his claws and, mounting to the

top of the sky among the stars, let him drop, and he fell from dawn

to sunset. Lox was often a badger in the Micmac stories, and was more

Puck-like than the devilish character he showed among the Passamaquoddy,

being then generally in the form of a wolverine, though sometimes in

that of a lynx. In the illustration Kaloo is soaring among the stars,

and appears to possess an extra pair of legs armed with claws. Perhaps

one of the objects beneath his beak represents Lox or some other victim

falling through the air. There is another story of Lox’s two feet

talking and acting independently of the rest of his body, and the two

feet and legs without any body may be a symbol of the tricksy demigod.

[Illustration: FIG. 658.--Kiwach, the Strong Blower.]

Fig. 658 represents Kiwach, the Strong Blower, a giant who kills people

with his violent breath. Tales of him seem to be more current or better

preserved among the Amalecites than among the other Abnaki.

[Illustration: FIG. 659.--Story of Glooscap.]

Fig. 659 is an exact copy of the design on a birch-bark jewel box

made by the Passamaquoddy of Maine, amiably contributed by Mrs. W. W.

Brown, together with the description of that part of the myth which

is illustrated on the box. There are several variants of this myth,

the nearest to the form now presented being published by Mr. J. Walter

Fewkes (_a_).

The Sable and the Black Cat wanted some maple sugar, and went to a

wood where the maple trees grew. Toward night they lost their way and

separated from each other to find it, agreeing to call to each other by

_m’toulin_ power. These animals were as frequently in human form as in

that designated by their names, and could change to the forms of other

animals. It is not certain, from anything in the present version of the

myth, which one of the daimons was represented by the Sable, but the

Black Cat afterward appears as Glooscap. Sable, in his wanderings, came

to a wigwam in which was a large fire with a kettle boiling over it,

tended by a great Snake. The Snake said he was glad the Sable had come,

as he was very hungry and would eat him, but in gratitude for his coming

would put him to as little pain as was possible. The Snake told him to

go into the woods and get a straight stick, so that when he pierced him

he would not tear open his entrails. Sable then went out and sang in a

loud voice a _m’toulin_ song for the Black Cat to hear and come to his

aid. The Black Cat heard him and came to him. Then the Sable told the

Black Cat how the Snake was going to kill him. The Black Cat told Sable

not to be afraid, but that he would kill the big Snake. He told him that

he would lie down behind the trunk of a hemlock tree which had fallen

and that Sable should search out a stick that was very crooked, only

pretending to obey the commands of the great Snake. After finding such a

stick he should carry it to the Snake, who would complain that the stick

was not straight enough, and then Sable should reply that he would

straighten it in the fire, holding it there until the steam came out

of the end. Then while the Snake watched the new mode of straightening

sticks Sable should strike the Snake over the eyes. The Sable sought out

the most crooked stick he could find and then returned to the wigwam

where the Snake was. The Snake said the stick was too crooked. The Sable

replied as directed and held it in the fire. When it was burning he

struck the Snake with it over the eyes, blinded him, and ran away. The

Snake followed the Sable, and as he passed over the hemlock trunk the

Black Cat killed him and they cut him into small pieces.

The two human figures on the left show the animals under the forest

trees in human form bidding good-bye before they parted in search of the

right trail. Their diminutive size gives the suggestion of distance from

the main scene. Next comes the great Snake’s wigwam, the stars outside

showing that night had come, and inside the kettle hung over a fire, and

on its right appear the wide-open jaws and an indication of the head of

the great Snake. The very crooked stick is on the other side. Farther on

the Black Cat comes responsive to the Sable’s call. Next is shown, the

Black Cat and the Sable, who is in human form, near the hemlock tree.

The fact that the tree is fallen is suggested, without any attempt at

perspective, by the broken-off branches and the thick part of the trunk

being upturned. The illustration ends with the Black Cat sitting upon

the Snake, clawing and throwing around pieces of it.

The illustration above presented gives an excellent example of the art

of the Passamaquoddy in producing pictures by the simple scraping of

birch bark.

The characters in Fig. 660 are reproduced from Schoolcraft (_k_).

[Illustration: FIG. 660.--Ojibwa shamanistic symbols.]

The first device, beginning at the left, is used by the Ojibwa to denote

a spirit or man enlightened from on high, having the head of the sun.

The second device is drawn by the Ojibwa for a “wabeno” or shaman.

The third is the Ojibwa “symbol” for an evil or one-sided “meda” or

higher-grade shaman.

The fourth is the Ojibwa general “symbol” for a meda.

Mr. William H. Holmes, of the Bureau of Ethnology, gives the following

account (condensed from the American Anthropologist, July, 1890) of a

West Virginia rock shelter (shown in Pl. XXXI). The copy is in two rows

of figures, but in the original there is only one row, the parts marked

_a_ and _a_ being united:

In Harrison county, West Virginia, a small stream, Two-Lick

creek, heading near the Little Kanawha divide, descends into the

west fork of the Monongahela about 4 miles west of Lost Creek

station, on the Clarksburg and Weston railroad. Ascending the

stream for a little more than 2 miles and turning to the right up a

tributary called Campbells run, is a recess in the rocks, the result

of local surface undermining of an outcrop of sandstone assisted by

roof degradation, which therefore is a typical rock shelter. At the

opening it is about 20 feet long and in the deepest part extends

back 16 feet.

The rock sculptures, of which simplified outlines are given in

Pl. XXXI, occupy the greater part of the back wall of the recess,

covering a space of some 20 feet long by about 4 feet in height.

At the left the line of figures approaches the outer face of the

rock, but at the right it terminates in the depths of the chamber,

beyond which the space is too low and uneven to be utilized. There

are indications that engravings have existed above and below those

shown, but their traces are too indistinct to be followed.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXI

PICTOGRAPH IN ROCK SHELTER, WEST VIRGINIA.]

The more legible designs comprise three heads, resembling

death’s-heads, one human head or face, one obscure human figure,

three birds resembling cranes or turkeys (one with outspread wings),

three mountain lions or beasts of like character, two rattlesnakes,

one turtle, one turtle-like figure with bird’s head, parts of

several unidentified creatures (one resembling a fish), and four

conventional figures or devices resembling, one a hand, one a star,

one the track of a horse, and the fourth the track of an elk,

buffalo, deer, or domestic cow.

The serpents, placed above and toward the right of the picture,

are much larger than life, but the other subjects are represented

somewhat nearly natural size. The animal figure facing the two

death’s-heads is drawn with considerable vigor and very decidedly

suggests the panther. A notable feature is the two back-curving

spines or spine-like tufts seen upon its shoulder; it is possible

that these represent some mythical character of the creature. Two of

the animal figures, in accordance with a widespread Indian practice,

exhibit the heart and the life line, the latter connecting the heart

with the mouth; these features are, as usual, drawn in red.

The human head or face is somewhat larger than life; it is

neatly hollowed out to the nearly uniform depth of one-fourth of

an inch, and is slightly polished over most of the surface. Ear

lobes are seen at the right and left, and an arched line, possibly

intended for a plume, rises from the left side of the head. A

crescent-shaped band of red extends across the face, and within this

the eyes are indistinctly marked. The mouth is encircled by a dark

line and shows six teeth, the spaces between being filled in with

red.

Probably the most remarkable members of the series are the

three death’s-heads seen near the middle of the line. That they are

intended to represent skulls and not the living face or head is

clear, and the treatment is decidedly suggestive of that exhibited

in similar work of the more cultured southern nations. The eye

spaces are large and deep, the cheek bones project, the nose is

depressed, and the mouth is a mere node depressed in the center.

All the figures are clearly and deeply engraved, and all save

the serpents are in full intaglio, being excavated over the entire

space within the outlines and to the depth of from one-eighth to

one-fourth of an inch. The serpents are outlined in deep unsteady

lines, ranging from one-fourth of an inch to 1 inch in width, and in

parts are as much as one-half an inch in depth. The example at the

left is rather carefully executed, but the other is very rude. It is

proper to notice a wing-like feature which forms a partial arch over

the larger serpent. It consists of a broad line of irregular pick

marks, which are rather new looking and may not have formed a part

of the original design; aside from this, there are few indications

of the use of hard or sharp tools, and, although picking or striking

must have been resorted to in excavating the figures, the lines and

surfaces were evidently finished by rubbing. The friable character

of the coarse, soft sandstone makes excavation by rubbing quite

easy, and at the same time renders it impossible to produce any

considerable degree of polish.

The red color used upon the large face and in delineating

the life line and heart of the animal figures is a red ocher or

hematite, bits of which, exhibiting the effects of rubbing, were

found in the floor deposits of the recess. The exact manner of its

application is not known (perhaps the mere rubbing was sufficient),

but the color is so fixed that it can not be removed save by the

removal of the rock surface.

Regarding the origin and purpose of these sculptures, it seems probable

that they are connected with religious practices and myths. If the

inscriptions were mnemonic records or notices it is reasonable to

suppose that they would have been placed so as to meet the eye of others

than those who made or were acquainted with them. But these works are

hidden in a mountain cave, and even yet, when the forest is cleared and

the surrounding slopes are cultivated, this secluded recess is invisible

from almost every side. The spot was evidently the resort of a chosen

few, such as a religious society. Such sequestered art gives evidence of

a mystic purpose.

[Illustration: FIG. 661.--Baho-li-kong-ya. Arizona.]

In this connection it may be noted that a rock drawing in the Canyon

Segy, Arizona (Fig. 661), shows Baho li-kong-ya, a god, the genius of

fructification, worshipped by living Moki priests. It is a great crested

serpent with mammæ, which are the source of the blood of all the animals

and of all the waters of the land.

The serpents in the last-mentioned plate and figure may be compared with

two Ojibway forms published by Schoolcraft (_l_).

[Illustration: FIG. 662.--Mythic serpents, Innuits.]

The upper design of Fig. 662 undoubtedly represents a mythical animal,

referred to in the myths of some of the Innuits. It is reproduced

from a drawing on walrus ivory, bearing Museum No. 40054, obtained at

Port Clarence, Alaska. This form is not so close in detail to that

form usually described and more fully outlined in the lower design of

the same figure, which is reproduced from a specimen of reindeer horn

drill-bow, from Alaska, marked No. 24557, collected by L. Turner.

Ensign Niblack, U. S. Navy (_d_), gives the following description of the

illustration reproduced here as Fig. 663.

[Illustration: FIG. 663.--Haida Wind Spirit.]

It represents T’kul, the wind spirit, and the cirrus clouds,

explaining the Haida belief in the causes of the changes in the

weather. The center figure is T’kul, the wind spirit. On the right

and left are his feet, which are indicated by long streaming

clouds; above are the wings, and on each side are the different

winds, each designated by an eye, and represented by the patches

of cirrus clouds. When T’kul determines which wind is to blow, he

gives the word and the other winds retire. The change in the weather

is usually followed by rain, which is indicated by the tears which

stream from the eyes of T’kul.

[Illustration: FIG. 664.--Orca. Haida.]

The same author, p. 322, thus describes Fig. 664:

It represents the orca or whale-killer, which the Haida believe

to be a demon called Skana. Judge Swan says that, according to their

belief--

“He can change into any desired form, and many are the legends

about him. One which was related to me was that ages ago the

Indians were out seal-hunting. The weather was calm and the sea

smooth. One of these killers, or blackfish, a species of porpoise,

kept alongside of a canoe, and the young men amused themselves by

throwing stones from the canoe ballast and hitting the fin of the

killer. After some pretty hard blows from these rocks the creature

made for the shore, where it grounded on the beach. Soon a smoke

was seen, and their curiosity prompted them to ascertain the cause,

but when they reached the shore they discovered, to their surprise,

that it was a large canoe, and not the Skana that was in the beach,

and that a man was on shore cooking some food. He asked them why

they threw stones at his canoe. ‘You have broken it,’ he said, ‘and

now go into the woods and get some cedar withes and mend it.’ They

did so, and when they had finished the man said, ‘Turn your backs

to the water and cover your heads with your skin blankets and don’t

look till I call you.’ They did so, and heard the canoe grate on the

beach as it was hauled down to the surf. Then the man said, ‘Look,

now.’ They looked, but when it came to the second breaker it went

under and presently came up outside of the breaker a killer and not

a canoe, and the man or demon was in its belly. This allegory is

common among all the tribes on the Northwest Coast, and even with

the interior tribes with whom the salmon takes the place of the

orca, which never ascends the fresh-water rivers. The Chilcat and

other tribes of Alaska carve figures of salmon, inside of which is

the full length figure of a nude Indian. * * * Casual observers

without inquiry will at once pronounce it to be Jonah in the fish’s

belly, but the allegory is of ancient origin, far antedating the

advent of the white man or the teachings of the missionary.”

The same author, Pl. XLIX, gives an explanation of Fig. 665, which is a

copy of a Haida slate carving, representing the “Bear-Mother.”

[Illustration: FIG. 665.--Bear-Mother. Haida.]

The Haida version of the myth is as follows:

A number of Indian squaws were in the woods gathering berries

when one of them, the daughter of a chief, spoke in terms of

ridicule of the whole bear species. The bears descended on them and

killed all but the chief’s daughter, whom the king of the bears took

to wife. She bore him a child half human and half bear. The carving

represents the agony of the mother in suckling this rough and

uncouth offspring. One day a party of Indian bear hunters discovered

her up a tree and were about to kill her, thinking her a bear, but

she made them understand that she was human. They took her home and

she afterwards became the progenitor of all Indians belonging to the

bear totem. They believe that the bear are men transformed for the

time being. This carving was made by Skaows-ke'ay, a Haida. Cat.

No. 73117, U. S. Nat. Museum. Skidegate village, Queen Charlotte

Islands, British Columbia. Collected by James G. Swan.

Dr. F. Boas (_d_) gives the following account of a myth of the Kwakiut

Indians illustrated on a house front at Alert Bay, copied here as Fig.

666.

[Illustration: FIG. 666.--Thunder-bird grasping whale.]

The house front shows how Kunkunquilikya (the thunder-bird)

tried to lift the whale. The legend says that he had stolen the son

of the raven, who in order to recover him, carried a whale out of a

huge cedar that he covered with a coating of gum. Then he let all

kinds of animals go into the whale, and they went to the land of the

thunder-bird. When the bird saw the whale he sent out his youngest

son to catch it. He was unable to lift it. He stuck to the gum and

the animals killed him. In this way the whole family was slaughtered.

On Pl. XXXII is shown a reproduction of a native Haida drawing,

representing the Wasko, a mythologic animal partaking of the

characteristics of both the bear and the orca, or killer. It is one of

the totems of the Haidas.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXII

WASCO AND MYTHIC RAVEN, HAIDA.]

On the same plate is a figure representing the Hooyeh, or mythic raven.

The character is also reproduced from a sketch made by a Haida Indian.

Both of these figures were obtained from Haida Indians who visited Port

Townsend, Washington, in the summer of 1884.

The following is extracted from Mrs. Eastman’s (_b_) Dahcotah. The

picture, reproduced here in Fig. 667, is that of Haokah, the antinatural

god, one of the giants of the Dakotas, drawn by White-Deer, a Sioux

warrior, living near Fort Snelling about 1840.

[Illustration: FIG. 667.--Haokah. Dakota giant.]

_Explanation of the drawing._--_a_, the giant; _b_, a frog that

the giant uses for an arrow point; _c_, a large bird that the giant

keeps in his court; _d_, another bird; _e_, an ornament over the

door leading into the court; _f_, an ornament over a door; _g_, part

of court ornamented with down; _h_, part of court ornamented with

red down; _i_, a bear; _j_, a deer; _k_, an elk; _l_, a buffalo;

_m_, _n_, incense-offering; _o_, a rattle of deer’s claws, used

when singing; _p_, a long flute, or whistle; _q_, _r_, _s_, _t_,

are meteors that the giant sends out for his defense, or to protect

him from invasion; _u_, _v_, _w_, _x_, the giant surrounded with

lightnings, with which he kills all kinds of animals that molest

him; _y_, red down in small bunches fastened to the railing of the

court; _z_, the same. One of these bunches of red down disappears

every time an animal is found dead inside the court; _aa_, _bb_,

touchwood, and a large fungus that grows on trees. These are eaten

by any animal that enters the court, and this food causes their

death; _cc_, a streak of lightning going from the giant’s hat; _dd_,

giant’s head and hat; _ee_, his bow and arrow.

Mrs. Eastman’s explanation of the drawing would have been better if she

had known more about the mystery lodges. It is given here in her own

words.

[Illustration: FIG. 668.--Ojibwa Ma'nidō.]

Fig. 668, from Copway (_c_), shows the representations, beginning from

the left, of spirits above, spirits under water, and animals under

ground, all of which are called ma'nidōs.

[Illustration: FIG. 669.--Menomoni. White Bear Ma'nidō.]

Fig. 669 is a reproduction of a drawing made by Niópet, chief of the

Menomoni Indians, and represents the white bear spirit who guards the

deposits of native copper of Lake Superior. According to the myth the

animal is covered with silvery hair, and the tail, which is of great

length and extends completely around the body, is composed of bright,

burnished copper. This spirit lives in the earth, where he guards the

metal from discovery.

[Illustration: FIG. 670.--Mythic wild-cats. Ojibway.]

In a midē' song, given by James Tanner (_f_), is the representation of

an animal resembling the preceding, viz, the middle character of Fig.

670, to which is attached the Ojibway phrase and explanation as follows:

Che-be-gau-ze-naung gwit-to-i-ah-na maun-dah-ween ah-kee-ge

neen-wa-nah gua-kwaik ke-nah gwit-to-i-ah-na.

I come to change the appearance of the ground, this ground; I

make it look different each season.

This is a Manito who, on account of his immensity of tail, and

other peculiarities, has no prototype. He claims to be the ruler

over the seasons. He is probably Gitche-a-nah-mi-e-be-zhew (great

underground wild-cat).

The “underground wild-cat” is again mentioned in the same work, page

377, with an illustration now presented as the left-hand character of

the same Fig. 670, slightly different from the above, described as

follows:

A-nah-me be-zhe ne-kau-naw.

Underground wild-cat is my friend.

At the fourth verse he exhibits his medicines, which he says are

the roots of shrubs and of We-ug-gusk-oan, or herbs, and from these

he derives his power, at least in part; but lest his claim, founded

on a knowledge of these, should not be considered of sufficient

importance, he proceeds to say, in the fifth and sixth verses,

that the snakes and the underground wild-cat are among his helpers

and friends. The ferocity and cunning, as well as the activity of

the feline animals have not escaped the notice of the Indians,

and very commonly they give the form of animals of this family to

those imaginary beings whose attributes bear, in their opinion,

some resemblance to the qualities of these animals. Most of them

have heard of the lion, the largest of the cats known to white men,

and all have heard of the devil; they consider them the same. The

wild-cat here figured has horns, and his residence is under the

ground; but he has a master, Gitche-a-nah-mi-e-be-zhew (the great

underground wild-cat), who is, as some think, Matche-Manito himself,

their evil spirit, or devil. Of this last they speak but rarely.

In another song from Tanner, p. 345, sung only by the midē', is the

drawing, the right hand character of the same figure, of a similar

animal with a bar across the throat, signifying, no doubt, its emerging

or appearance from the surface of the ground.

Nah-ne-bah o-sa ann neen-no ne-mah-che oos-sa ya-ah-ne-no.

[Twice.]

I walk about in the nighttime.

This first figure represents the wild-cat, to whom, on account

of his vigilance, the medicines for the cure of diseases were

committed. The meaning probably is that to those who have the

shrewdness, the watchfulness, and intelligence of the wild-cat,

is intrusted the knowledge of those powerful remedies, which, in

the opinion of the Indians, not only control life and avail to

the restoration of health but give an almost unlimited power over

animals and birds.

[Illustration: FIG. 671.--Winnebago magic animal.]

Schoolcraft, part II, p. 224, describes Fig. 671 as follows:

It was drawn by Little Hill, a Winnebago chief of the upper

Mississippi, west. He represents it as their medicine animal. He

says that this animal is seldom seen; that it is only seen by

medicine men after severe fasting. He has a piece of bone which

he asserts was taken from this animal. He considers it a potent

medicine and uses it by filing a small piece in water. He has also a

small piece of native copper which he uses in the same manner, and

entertains like notions of its sovereign virtues.

The four preceding figures are to be compared with those relating to the

Piasa rock. See Figs. 40 and 41, supra.

[Illustration: FIG. 672.--Mythic buffalo.]

Fig. 672.--A Minneconjou Dakota, having killed a buffalo cow, found an

old woman inside of her. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1850-’51.

For remarks upon this statement see Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for

1850-’51, supra.

Graphic representations of Atotarka and of the Great Heads are shown

in Mrs. Erminie A. Smith’s Myths of the Iroquois, in the Second Annual

Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Several illustrations of myths and

mythic animals appear in the present work in Chap. IX, Secs. 4 and 5.

THUNDER BIRDS.

Some forms of the thunder bird are here presented:

[Illustration: FIG. 673.--Thunder-bird, Dakota.]

[Illustration: FIG. 674.--Thunder-bird, Dakota.]

Figs. 673 and 674 are forms of the thunder bird found in 1883 among

the Dakotas near Fort Snelling, drawn and interpreted by themselves.

They are both winged, and have waving lines extending from the mouth

downward, signifying lightning. It is noticeable that Fig. 673 placed

vertically, then appearing roughly as an upright human figure, is almost

identically the same as some of the Ojibwa meda or spirit figures

represented in Schoolcraft, and also on a bark Ojibwa record in the

possession of the writer.

[Illustration: FIG. 675.--Wingless thunder-bird, Dakota.]

Fig. 675 is another and more cursive form of the thunder bird obtained

at the same place and time as those immediately preceding. It is

wingless, and, with changed position or point of view, would suggest a

headless human figure.

[Illustration: FIG. 676.--Thunder-bird, Dakota.]

The thunder-bird, Fig. 676, is blue, with red breast and tail. It is a

copy of one worked in beads found at Mendota, Minnesota.

[Illustration: FIG. 677.--Dakota thunder-bird.]

The Sioux believe that thunder is a large bird, and represent it thus,

Fig. 677, according to Mrs. Eastman (_c_), who adds details condensed as

follows:

This figure is often seen worked with porcupine quills on their

ornaments. U-mi-ne wah-chippe is a dance given by some one who fears

thunder and thus endeavors to propitiate the god and save his own

life.

A ring is made of about 60 feet in circumference by sticking

saplings in the ground and bending their tops down, fastening them

together. In the center of this ring a pole is placed, about 15 feet

in height and painted red. From this swings a piece of birch bark

cut so as to represent thunder. At the foot of the pole stand two

boys and two girls. The boys represent war; they are painted red and

hold war clubs in their hands. The girls have their faces painted

with blue clay; they represent peace.

On one side of the circle a kind of booth is erected, and

about 20 feet from it a wigwam. There are four entrances. When

all arrangements for the dance are concluded the man who gives it

emerges from his wigwam, dressed up hideously, crawling on all fours

toward the booth. He must sing four tunes before reaching it.

In the meantime the medicine men, who are seated in the wigwam,

beat time on the drum, and the young men and squaws keep time to the

music by hopping on one foot and then on the other, moving around

inside the ring as fast as they can. This is continued for about

five minutes, until the music stops. After resting a few moments the

second tune commences and lasts the same length of time, then the

third and the fourth; the Indian meanwhile making his way toward the

booth. At the end of each tune a whoop is raised by the men dancers.

After the Indian has reached his booth inside the ring he must

sing four more tunes. At the end of the fourth tune the squaws all

run out of the ring as fast as possible, and must leave by the same

way that they entered, the other three entrances being reserved for

the men, who, carrying their war implements, might be accidentally

touched by one of the squaws, and the war implements of the Sioux

warrior have from time immemorial been held sacred from the touch of

woman. For the same reason the men form the inner ring in dancing

round the pole, their war implements being placed at the foot of the

pole.

When the last tune is ended the young men shoot at the image of

thunder, which is hanging to the pole, and when it falls a general

rush is made by the warriors to get hold of it. There is placed at

the foot of the pole a bowl of water colored with blue clay. While

the men are trying to seize the parts of the bark representation of

their god they at the same time are eagerly endeavoring to drink the

water in the bowl, every drop of which must be drank.

The warriors then seize on the two boys and girls (the

representations of war and peace) and use them as roughly as

possible, taking their pipes and war-clubs from them and rolling

them in the dirt until the paint is entirely rubbed off from their

faces. Much as they dislike this part of the dance, they submit to

it through fear, believing that after this performance the power of

thunder is destroyed.

James’s Long (_f_) says:

When a Kansas Indian is killed in battle the thunder is supposed

to take him up they do not know where. In going to battle each man

traces an imaginary figure of the thunder on the soil, and he who

represents it incorrectly is killed by the thunder.

[Illustration: FIG. 678.--Thunder-bird. Haida.]

Fig. 678 is “Skam-son,” the thunder-bird, a tattoo mark copied from the

back of an Indian belonging to the Laskeek village of the Haida tribe,

Queen Charlotte islands, by Mr. James G. Swan.

[Illustration: FIG. 679.--Thunder-bird. Twana.]

Fig. 679 is a Twana thunder-bird, as reported by Rev. M. Eells in Bull.

U. S. Geol. and Geog. Survey, III, p. 112.

There is at Eneti, on the reservation [Washington Territory], an

irregular basaltic rock, about 3 feet by 3 feet and 4 inches, and a

foot and a half high. On one side there has been hammered a face,

said to be the representation of the face of the thunder-bird, which

could also cause storms.

The two eyes are about 6 inches in diameter and 4 inches apart

and the nose about 9 inches long. It is said to have been made by

some man a long time ago, who felt very badly, and went and sat on

the rock and with another stone hammered out the eyes and nose. For

a long time they believed that if the rock was shaken it would cause

rain, probably because the thunder-bird was angry.

The three following figures, taken from Red-Cloud’s Census, are

connected with the thunder-bird myth:

[Illustration: FIG. 680.--Medicine bird. Dakota.]

Fig. 680.--Medicine bird. Red-Cloud’s Census. The word medicine is

in the Indian sense, before explained, and would be more correctly

expressed by the word sacred or mystic, as is also indicated by the

waving lines issuing from the mouth.

[Illustration: FIG. 681.--Five thunders. Dakota.]

Fig. 681.--Five thunders. Red-Cloud’s Census. The thunder-bird is here

drawn with five lines (voices) issuing from the mouth, which may mean

many voices or loud sound, but is connected with the above mentioned

wavy or spiral lines, which form the conventional sign for waka^n.

[Illustration: FIG. 682.--Thunder pipe. Dakota.]

Fig. 682.--Thunder pipe. Red-Cloud’s Census. This is a pipe to which are

attached the wings of the thunder-bird.

[Illustration: FIG. 683.--Micmac thunder-bird.]

Fig. 683, one of the drawings from the Kejimkoojik rocks of Nova Scotia,

may be compared with the other designs of the thunder-bird and also with

the Ojibwa type of device for woman. As regards the head, which appears

to have a non-human form, it may also be compared with the many totemic

designations in Chapter XIII, on Totems, Titles, and Names.

[Illustration: FIG. 684.--Venezuelan thunder-bird.]

Marcano (_d_), describing Fig. 684, reports:

At Boca del Infierno (mouth of hell), on a plain, there are

found stones, separated from each other by spaces of 7 meters, on

which are found inscriptions nearly a centimeter in depth. One of

them represents a great bird similar to those which the Oyampis

(Crevaux) are in the habit of drawing. On its left shoulder are

seen three concentric circles arranged like those that form the

eyes of the jaguars of Calcara. This figure is often reproduced in

Venezuelan Guiana and beyond the Esequibo. The bird is united at the

right by a double connecting stroke with another which is incomplete

and much smaller. Furthermore, three small circles are seen below

the left wing; three others, farther apart, separate its right wing

from the neck of the lower bird. The triangles which form the breast

and the tail of the two birds are worthy of note.

Mr. A. Ernst (_b_) describes the same figure:

From the same place (“Boca del Infierno,” a rapid of the

Orinoco, 35 kilometers below the mouth of the Caura) is easily

recognized a rough representation of two birds; from the feathers

of the larger one water seems to be dropping; above, to the right,

is seen a picture of the sun. This may be symbolic, and would then

remind one of the representation of the wind and rain gods on the

ruins of Central America.

[Illustration: FIG. 685.--Ojibwa thunder-bird.]

Fig. 685 is a copy of four specimens of Indian workmanship in the

collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The

objects are depicted by porcupine quills worked on pieces of birch bark,

and represent various forms of the thunder-bird. The specimens are

reported as having been obtained from a northwestern tribe, which may

safely be designated as the Ojibwa, because the figures relate to one of

the most important mythic animals of that tribe, and also because birch

bark is used, a material exceedingly scarce in the country of the Sioux,

among whom also the thunder-bird has a prominent religious position.

_a._ Made of neutral-tinted quills upon yellow bark, as is also _b_,

which is without the projecting pieces to designate wings. In _c_, made

of yellow quills on faded red bark, the head is shown with the wings

and legs beneath, while in the two preceding figures the head takes the

place of the bird’s body. _d._ Here is still more abbreviation, the body

and legs being absent, leaving only the head and wings. This is made of

neutral-tint quills on straw-yellow bark.

[Illustration: FIG. 686.--Moki Rain bird.]

Fig. 686 is a copy of a painting on a jar, probably of old Moki work,

thus described in the manuscript catalogue of Mr. T. V. Keam:

It is the “Rain bird” (Tci-zur), the upper portion surrounded

by inclosing cloud symbols, arranged so as to convey the idea of

the germinative symbol implying the generative power of rain. The

crosshatching, still water, in the wings denotes rain water in

volume. The body or tail of the bird divided into two tapering

prolongations is a very common occurrence. As a cloud emblem in the

modern ware, the Tci-zur is not like the Um-tokina (Thunder-bird) in

mythical creation, but is the comprehensive name used by the women

for any small bird. Explained as a rain emblem by the fact that

during seasons of sufficient rainfall flocks of small birds surround

the villages and gardens, while during drought they take flight to

the distant water courses.

[Illustration: FIG. 687.--Ahuitzotl.]

Fig. 687 is reproduced from Kingsborough (_c_). It represents Ahuitzotl,

which is the name of an aquatic animal famous in Mexican mythology. The

conventional sign for water is connected with this animal which Dr.

Brinton (_c_) calls a hedgehog.

[Illustration: FIG. 688.--Peruvian fabulous animals.]

Wiener (_c_) gives a copy, here reproduced as the left-hand character in

Fig. 688, of a bas-relief found at Cabana, Peru, representing a fabulous

animal, a quadruped, the hair of which is floating and its tongue

hanging out of the mouth and ending in serpents’ heads. One-sixth actual

size.

The same author, loc. cit., gives a copy, now reproduced as the

right-hand character in the same Fig. 688, of another bas-relief in

granite found at Cabana, Peru, representing a fabulous animal, perhaps

the alcoce, sitting like a dog. One-sixth natural size.

[Illustration: FIG. 689.--Australian mythic personages.]

Mr. Thomas Worsnop (_a_) gives an account of Fig. 689, abbreviated as

follows:

Sir George Grey, between 1836 and 1839, saw on a sandstone rock a most

extraordinary large figure. Upon examination this proved to be a

drawing at the entrance to a cave, which he found to contain besides

many remarkable paintings. On the sloping roof the principal character,

i. e., the upper one of Fig. 689, was drawn. In order to produce the

greater effect the rock about it was painted black and the figure itself

colored with the most vivid red and white. It thus appeared to stand out

from the rock, and Sir George Grey says he was surprised at the moment

that he first saw this gigantic head and upper part of a body bending

over and staring grimly down at him. He adds that it would be impossible

to convey in words an adequate idea of this uncouth and savage figure,

and therefore he only gives such a succinct account as will serve as a

sort of description.

Its head was encircled by bright red rays, something like the rays one

sees proceeding from the sun, when depicted on the signboard of a public

house; inside of this came a broad stripe of very brilliant red, which

was crossed by lines of white; but both inside and outside of this red

space were narrow stripes of a still deeper red, intended probably to

mark its boundaries; the face was painted vividly white and the eyes

black, being, however, surrounded by red and yellow lines; the body,

hands, and arms were outlined in red, the body being curiously painted

with red stripes and bars.

Upon the rock which formed the left-hand wall of this cave, and which

partly faced you on entering, was a very singular painting, the lower

character of the same figure, vividly colored, representing four heads

joined together. From the mild expression of the countenances they

appeared to represent females, and to be drawn in such a manner, and

in such a position, as to look up at the principal figure, before

described; each had a very remarkable head-dress, colored bright blue,

and one had a necklace on. Both of the lower figures had a sort of dress

painted with red in the same manner as that of the principal figure, and

one of them had a band round her waist. In Sir George Grey’s opinion

each of the four faces was marked by a totally distinct expression of

countenance, and none of them had mouths.

SECTION 3.

SHAMANISM.

The term “shaman” is a corrupted form of the Sanscrit word meaning

ascetic. Its original application was to the religion of certain tribes

of northern Asia, but now shamanism is generally used to express several

forms of religion which are founded in the supposed communion with and

influence over supernatural beings by means of magic arts. The shaman

or priest pretends to control by incantations and ceremonies the evil

spirits to whom death, sickness, and other misfortunes are ascribed.

This form or stage of religion was so prevalent among the North American

Indians that the adoption of the term “shaman” here is substantially

correct, and it avoids both the stupid expression “medicine man” of

current literature and the indefinite title “priest,” the associations

with which are not appropriate to the Indian religious practitioner.

The statement that the Indians worship, or ever have worshiped, one

“Great Spirit” or single overruling personal god is erroneous. That

philosophical conception is beyond the stage of culture reached by them,

and was not found in any tribe previous to missionary influence. Their

actual philosophy can be expressed far more objectively and therefore

pictorially.

The special feature of the notes now collected under the present heading

relates to the claims and practices of shamans, but the immediately

succeeding headings of “Charms and Amulets” and of “Religious

Ceremonies” are closely connected with the same topic. It must be

confessed that, as now presented, they have been arranged chiefly for

mechanical convenience, to which convenience also in other parts of the

present work scientific discrimination has sometimes been forced to

yield without, it is hoped, much injury. Individual intercomparison,

with or without cross references, is besought from any critical reader

of this paper.

Feats of jugglery or pretended magic rivaling or surpassing the best

of spiritualistic séances have been recounted to the present writer

in many places by independent and intelligent Indian witnesses, not

operators, generally of advanced age. The cumulated evidence gives an

opportunity for spiritualists to argue for the genuineness of their own

manifestations or manipulations as, in accordance with the degree of

credence, they may be styled. Others will contend that these remarkable

performances in which this hemisphere was rich before the Columbian

discovery--the occidental rivaling the oriental Indians--belong to a

culture stage below civilization. They will observe that the age of

miracles among barbaric people has not expired, and that it still exists

among outwardly civilized persons who are yet subject to superstition in

its true etymologic sense of “remaining over from the past.”

The most elaborate and interesting of these stories which are known

relate to a time about forty years ago, shortly before the Davenport

brothers and the Fox sisters had excited interest in the civilized

portions of the United States; but exhibitions of a magic character

are still given among the tribes, though secretly, from fear of the

Indian agents and missionaries. It is an important fact that the first

French missionaries in Canada and the early settlers of New England

described substantially the same performances when they first met the

Indians, all of whom belonged to the Algonquian or Iroquoian stocks. So

remarkable and frequent were these performances of jugglery that the

French, in 1613, called the whole body of Indians on the Ottawa River,

whom they met at a very early period, “The Sorcerers.” They were the

tribes afterwards called Nipissing, and were the typical Algonquians.

No suspicion of prestidigitation or other form of charlatanry appears

to have been entertained by any of the earliest French and English

writers on the subject. The severe Puritan and the ardent Catholic both

considered that the exhibitions were real, and the work of Satan. It is

also worth mentioning that one of the derivations of the name “Micmac”

is connected with the word meaning sorcerer. The early known practices

of this character, which had an important effect upon the life of the

people, extended from the extreme east of the continent to the Great

Lakes. They have been found later far to the south, and in a higher

state of evolution.

It was obvious in cross-examining the old men of the Algonquians

that the performances of jugglery were exhibitions of the pretended

miraculous power of an adventurer whereby he obtained a reputation

above his rivals and derived subsistence and authority by the selling

of charms and pretended superhuman information. The charms and fetiches

which still are bought from the few shamans who yet have a credulous

clientele are of three kinds--to bring death or disease on an enemy, to

lure an enemy into an ambush, and to excite a return to sexual love.

Among the Ojibwa three distinct secret societies are extant, the

members of which are termed, respectively and in order of their

importance, the Midē', the Jĕs'sakīd, and the Wâbĕnō. The oldest and

most influential society is known as the Midē'wiwin', or Grand Medicine,

and the structure in which the ceremonies are conducted is called the

Midē'wigân, or Grand Medicine lodge.

The following statement of the White Earth Midē' shaman presents his

views upon the origin of the rite and the objects employed in connection

with ceremonies, as well as in the practices connected with medical

magic and sorcery:

When Minabō'sho, the first man, had been for some time upon

the earth, two great spirits told him that to be of service to his

successors they would give to him several gifts, which he was to

employ in prolonging life and extending assistance to those who

might apply for it.

The first present consisted of a sacred drum, which was to be

used at the side of the sick and when invoking the presence and

assistance of the spirits. The second was a sacred rattle, with

which he was enabled to prolong the life of a patient. The third

gift was tobacco, which was to be an emblem of peace; and as a

companion he also received a dog. He was then told to build a lodge,

where he was to practice the rites of which he would receive further

instruction.

All the knowledge which the Midē' have, and more, Minabō'sho

received from the spirits. Then he built a long lodge, as he had

been directed, and now even at this day he is present at the Sacred

Medicine lodge when the Grand Medicine rite is performed.

In the rite is incorporated most that is ancient amongst them,

songs and traditions that have descended, not orally alone, but by

pictographs, for a long line of generations. In this rite is also

perpetuated the purest and most ancient idioms of their language,

which differs somewhat from that of the common, every-day use.

It is desirable to explain the mode of using the Midē' and other bark

records of the Ojibwa and also those of other tribes mentioned in this

paper. A comparison made by Dr. Tyler of the pictorial alphabet to teach

children, “A was an archer,” etc., is not strictly appropriate in this

case. The devices are not only mnemonic, but are also ideographic and

descriptive. They are not merely invented to express or memorize the

subject, but are evolved therefrom. To persons acquainted with secret

societies a good comparison for the charts or rolls is what is called

the trestle board of the Masonic order, which is printed and published

and publicly exposed without exhibiting any of the secrets of the order,

yet through its ideography it is practically useful to the esoteric

members by assisting memory in details of ceremony and it also prevents

deviation from the established ritual.

[Illustration: FIG. 690.--Ojibwa Midē' wigwam.]

Fig. 690, from Copway (_d_), gives the Ojibway character for Grand

Medicine lodge.

Fig. 171, supra, is a reproduction, with description, of a birch-bark

record illustrating the alleged power of a Jĕssakkī'd, one who is also a

Midē' of the four degrees of the Medicine Society.

Fig. 172, supra, represents, with explanations, a Jĕssakkī'd named

Niwi'kki, curing a sick woman by sucking the demon through a bone tube.

When the method of procedure of a Midē' goes beyond the ordinary

ceremonies, such as chanting prayers and drumming, the use of the

rattle, and the administration of magic medicines and exorcisms, it

overlaps the prescribed formulæ of the Midē'win and partakes of the

rites of the Jĕssakkī'd or “Juggler.”

[Illustration: FIG. 691.--Lodge of a Midē'.]

The lodge of the Midē' is represented as in Fig. 691, the shaman himself

being indicated as sitting inside.

[Illustration: FIG. 692.--Lodge of Jĕssakkī'd.]

The Jĕssakkī'd represents his lodge or jugglery as shown in Fig.

692, the shaman being represented as sitting on the outside. The

chief feature of the jugglery lodge is that the branch is always seen

projecting from the top of one of the vertical poles, which peculiarity

exists in no other religious structure represented in pictorial records.

The following group, including Figs. 693 to 697, gives several modes

of illustrating the “making buffalo medicine” by the Dakotas and other

tribes of the Great Plains. The main object was to bring the buffalo

to where they could be hunted successfully, and incantations, with

dancing and many ceremonies, were resorted to, as upon the buffalo the

tribes depended not only for food but for most of the necessaries and

conveniences of their daily life. The topic is referred to elsewhere in

this paper, especially in Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for the year 1810-’11.

[Illustration: FIG. 693.--Making medicine. Dakota.]

Fig. 693.--A Minneconjou chief named Lone-Horn made medicine with a

white buffalo cow skin. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1858-’59.

The horned head of the animal is connected with the man figure. An

albino buffalo was much more prized for ceremonial purposes than any

other. Lone-Horn, chief of the Minneconjous, died in 1874, in his camp

on the Big Cheyenne.

[Illustration: FIG. 694.--Making medicine. Dakota.]

Fig. 694.--A Minneconjou Dakota named Little-Tail first made “medicine”

with white buffalo cow skin. The-Swan’s Winter Count, 1810-’11. Again

the head of an albino buffalo.

[Illustration: FIG. 695.--Making medicine. Dakota.]

Fig. 695.--White-Cow-Man. Red-Cloud’s Census. The mere possession of an

albino buffalo conferred dignity and honor. To have once owned such an

animal, even though it had died or been lost, gave specific rank.

[Illustration: FIG. 696.--Making medicine. Dakota.]

Fig. 696.--Lone-Horn makes medicine. “At such times Indians sacrifice

ponies and fast.” The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1858-’59. In this figure the

buffalo head is black.

[Illustration: FIG. 697.--Making medicine.]

Fig. 697. Buffalo is scarce; an Indian makes medicine and brings a herd

to the suffering. The-Flame’s Winter Count, 1843-’44.

Here the incantation is shown by a tipi with the buffalo head drawn upon

it. It is the “medicine” or sacred tipi where the rites are held.

A curious variant of divination with regard to the use of songs in the

removal of disease was found among the Choctaws. Each of the songs

of this class bore reference to some herb or form of treatment, each

of which was represented objectively or pictorially and produced

simultaneously with the chanting of the appropriate song by the shaman.

The remedy or treatment to be adopted was decided upon by the degree of

pleasure or relief afforded to the patient by the respective songs.

[Illustration: FIG. 698.--Magic Killing.]

Fig. 698. Cat-Owner was killed with a spider-web thrown at him by a

Dakota. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1824-’25. The spider-web is shown

reaching to the heart of the victim from the hand of the man who threw

it and two spiral wakan lines are also shown. Blood issuing from his

nose, colored red in the original, indicates that he bled to death. It

is a common belief among Indians that certain “medicine men” possess the

power of taking life by shooting needles, straws, spider-webs, bullets,

and other objects, however distant the person may be against whom they

are directed.

It may be noted that the union line connecting the two figures at the

base signifies that they belong to the same tribe which the hair on the

figure of the left shows to be Dakota. The victim is not scalped, but

has no hair or other designation, being shown only in outline.

[Illustration: FIG. 699.--Held a ghost lodge.]

Fig. 699. Cannaksa-Yuha, Has-a-war-club; from the Oglala Roster. This

man has his father’s name “war-club,” and is therefore set by the ghosts

in his stead as a warrior. He is supposed to be invulnerable to any

mortal weapon, and the children and even women fear him as they would

a ghost. He holds the war club before his face, as it partakes of the

nature of insignia. In the original the whole of the man’s face is

painted red. This is to show that he has a wakicagapi-ecokicoupe, which

means that he has put up a ghost tent, concerning which there are many

and complicated ceremonies and details narrated by Rev. J. Owen Dorsey

in the American Anthropologist, II, 145 et seq.

[Illustration: FIG. 700.--Muzzin-ne-neen. Ojibwa.]

John Tanner (_g_) gives an account of sorcery among the Ojibwa, with

illustrations copied as Fig. 700, being nearly identical with those

recently obtained by Dr. Hoffman, and published in the Seventh Ann.

Rep., Bureau of Ethnology, as Figs. 20 and 21.

It was thought necessary to have recourse to a medicine

hunt. Nah-gitch-e-gum-me [a “medicine” maker] sent to me and

O-ge-mah-we-ninne, the best two hunters of the band, each a little

leather sack of medicine, consisting of certain roots pounded fine

and mixed with red paint, to be applied to the little images or

figures of the animals we wish to kill. Precisely the same method

is practiced in this kind of hunting, at least as far as the use

of medicine is concerned, as in those instances where one Indian

attempts to inflict disease or suffering on another. A drawing or

a little image is made to represent the man, the woman, or the

animal on which the power of the medicine is to be tried; then the

part representing the heart is punctured with a sharp instrument,

if the design be to cause death, and a little of the medicine is

applied. The drawing or image of an animal used in this case is

called muzzin-ne-neen, and the same name is applicable to the little

figures of a man or women, and is sometime rudely traced on birch

bark, in other instances more carefully carved of wood. These little

images or drawings, for they are called by the same names, whether

of carved wood or rags or only rudely sketched on birch bark, or

even traced in sand, are much in use among several and probably all

the Algonquin tribes. Their use is not confined to hunting, but

extends to the making of love, and the gratification of hatred,

revenge, and all malignant passions.

[Illustration: FIG. 701.--Muzzin-ne-neen. Ojibwa.]

It is a prevailing belief that the necromancers, men or women

of medicine, or those who are acquainted with the hidden powers

of their _wusks_, can, by practicing upon the muzzin-ne-neence,

exercise an unlimited control over the body and mind of the person

represented. Many a simple Indian girl gives to some crafty old

squaw her most valued ornaments, or whatever property she may

possess, to purchase from her the love of the man she is most

anxious to please. The old woman, in a case of this kind, commonly

makes up a little image of stained wood and rags, to which she

gives the name of the person whose inclinations she is expected

to control; and to the heart, the eyes, or to some other part of

this she, from time to time, applies her medicines, or professes to

have done so, as she may find necessary to dupe and encourage her

credulous employer.

But the influence of these images and conjurations is more

frequently tested in cases of an opposite character, where the

inciting cause is not love, but hatred, and the object to be

attained the gratification of a deadly revenge. In cases of this

kind the practices are similar to those above mentioned, only

different medicines are used Sometimes the muzzin-ne-neence is

pricked with a pin or needle in various parts, and pain or disease

is supposed to be produced in the corresponding part of the person

practiced upon. Sometimes they blacken the hands and mouth of the

image, and the effect expected is the change which marks the near

approach of death.

The similarity, approaching identity, of these practices to those common

in Europe during the middle ages and continuing in some regions until

the present time will be noticed.

The same author, pp. 197, 198, gives an account of Ojibwa divination in

the following address of a shaman, illustrated by Fig. 702.

[Illustration: FIG. 702.--Ojibwa divination.]

For you, my friends, who have been careful to regard and obey

the injunctions of the Great Spirit, as communicated by me, to

each of you he has given to live to the full age of man: this long

and straight line a is the image of your several lives. For you,

Shaw-shaw-wa ne-ba-se, who have turned aside from the right path,

and despised the admonitions you have received, this short and

crooked line _b_ represents your life. You are to attain only to

half of the full age of man. This line, turning off on the other

side, is that which shows what is determined in relation to the

young wife of Ba-po-wash. As he said this, he showed us the marks

he had made on the ground, as below. The long, straight middle line

represented, as he said, the life of the Indians, Sha-gwaw-koo-sink,

Wau-zhe-gaw-maish-koon, etc. The short, crooked one below showed the

irregular course and short continuance of mine; and the abruptly

terminating one on the other side showed the life of the favorite

wife of Ba-po-wash.

Fig. 703 was copied from a piece of walrus ivory in the museum of the

Alaska Commercial Company, of San Francisco, California, in 1882, by Dr.

Hoffman, and the interpretation is as obtained from a native Alaskan.

[Illustration: FIG. 703.--Shaman exorcising demon. Alaska.]

_a_, _b_. The shaman’s summer habitations, trees growing in the

vicinity. _c._ The shaman, who is represented in the act of holding

one of his “demons.” These are considered as under the control of the

shaman, who employs them to drive others out of the bodies of sick

men. _d._ The demon or aid. _e._ The same shaman exorcising the demons

causing the sickness. _f_, _g_. Sick men, who have been under treatment,

and from whose bodies the “evil beings” or sickness has been expelled.

_h._ Two “evil spirits” which have left the bodies of _f_ and _g_.

Fig. 704 was copied by Dr. Hoffman from an ivory bow in the same museum.

The interpretation was also obtained at the same time from the same

Alaskan.

[Illustration: FIG. 704.--Supplication for success. Alaska.]

The rod of the bow upon which the characters occur is here represented

in three sections, A, B, and C. A bears the beginning of the narrative,

extending over only one-half of the length of the rod. The course of the

inscription is then continued on the adjacent side of the rod at the

middle, and reading in both directions (sections B and C), toward the

two files of approaching animals. B and C occupy the whole of one side.

The following is the explanation of the characters:

A. _a_, baidarka or skin boat resting on poles; _b_, winter habitation;

_c_, tree; _d_, winter habitations; _e_, storehouse; _f_, tree. Between

this and the storehouse is placed a piece of timber, from which is

suspended fish for drying. _g_, storehouse. The characters from _a_ to

_g_ represent a group of dwellings, which signifies a settlement, the

home of the person to whom the history relates. _h_, the hunter sitting

on the ground, asking for aid, and making the gesture for supplication.

_i_, the shaman to whom application is made by the hunter desiring

success in the chase. The shaman has just finished his incantations, and

while still retaining his left arm in the position for that ceremony,

holds the right toward the hunter, giving him the success requested.

_j_, the shaman’s winter lodge; _k_, trees; _l_, summer habitation of

the shaman; _m_, trees near the shaman’s home.

B. _n_, tree; _o_, a shaman standing upon his lodge, driving back game

which had approached against his wish. To this shaman the hunter had

also made application for success in the chase, but was denied, hence

the act of driving back. _p_, deer leaving at the shaman’s order; _q_,

horns of a deer swimming a river; _r_, young deer, apparently, from the

smaller size of the body and unusually long legs.

C. _s_, a tree; _t_, the lodge of the hunter (A. _h_), who, after having

been granted the request for success, placed his totem upon the lodge as

a mark of gratification and to insure greater luck in his undertaking;

_u_, the hunter in the act of shooting; _v-w_, the game killed,

consisting of five deer; _x_, the demon sent out by the shaman (A.

_i_), to drive the game in the way of the hunter; _y-bb_, the demon’s

assistants.

The following description and illustration, Fig. 705, is kindly

contributed by the Rev. M. Eells, of Skokomish, Washington:

[Illustration: FIG. 705.--Skokomish tamahnous.]

Your figure of a shaman’s lodge in Alaska [Fig. 714 in this

work] reminds me of a drawing made of the same character on this

reservation by one of our best educated Indian boys. His description

of it is as follows: “When I was at Dr. Charley’s house (the shaman

or medicine man), they tamahnoused [performed incantations] over

[my brother] Frank. They saw that he was under a kind of sickness.

Dr. Charley took it, and just a little after that Frank shook and

became stiff, and while I sat I heard my father say that his breath

was gone. I went out, as I did not want to see my brother lay dead

before me. When I came back he was breathing a little and his

eyes were closed. Dr. Charley was taking care of his breath with

his own tamahnous [guardian spirit] and waiting for more folks to

come, so as to have enough folks to beat on sticks when he should

tamahnous and see what was the matter with Frank. So he went on and

saw that there was another kind of sickness besides the one he took

first. The other one went over Frank and almost killed him. Dr.

Charley took it again and went (travel) [in spirit] with another

kind of tamahnous to see where Frank’s spirit was. He found him at

Humahuma [18 or 20 miles distant], where they had camped [some time

previous]. So Frank got better after a hard tamahnous. From the

drawing you will see how Dr. Charley fixed the kind of sickness.

_b_ shows the first sickness which Dr. Charley took. It has tails,

which, when they come close to the sick person, makes him worse. _a_

is the way it goes when it kills a person and stays in his home. _c_

is the second one and is hanging over Frank, _d_. _e_ is another

sickness which is in Frank.”

In Kingsborough (_d_) is the following: “In the year of Eleven Houses,

or in 1529, Nuño de Guzman set out for Yalisco on his march to subdue

that territory. They pretend that a serpent descended from the sky,

exclaiming that troubles were preparing for the natives, since the

Christians were directing their course hither.” The illustration

for this account is presented as Fig. 1224, Chap. XX, on Special

Comparisons.

SECTION 4.

CHARMS AND AMULETS.

The use of material objects for the magic purposes suggested by this

title is well known. Their graphic representation is not so familiar,

though it is to be supposed that the objects of this character would

be pictorially represented in pictographs connected with religion. The

following is an instance where the use of a charm or fetich in action

was certainly portrayed in a pictograph.

[Illustration: FIG. 706.--Mdewakantawan fetich.]

Fig. 706, drawn by the Dakota Indians, near Fort Snelling, Minnesota,

exhibits the use as a charm or talisman of an instrument fashioned

in imitation of a war club, though it is not adapted to offensive

employment. The head of the talisman is a grooved stone hammer from

an inch and a half to 5 inches in length. A withe is tied about the

middle of the hammer, in the groove binding on a handle of from 2 to

4 feet in length. The latter is frequently wrapped with buckskin or

rawhide to strengthen it, as well as for ornamental purposes. Feathers

attached bear designs indicating marks of distinction, perhaps sometimes

fetichistic devices not understood.

It is believed that these objects possess the charm of warding off an

enemy’s missiles when held upright before the body, as shown in the

pictograph. The interpretation was explained by the draftsman himself.

[Illustration: FIG. 707.--Medicine bag as worn.]

“Medicine bags,” as they are termed by frontiersmen, are worn as

amulets. They are sometimes filled by the owner in obedience to the

suggestions of visions, but more frequently are prepared by the

shaman. They are carried suspended from the neck by means of string or

buckskin cords, as shown in Fig. 707, drawn in 1889 by I-teup'-de-tĭ,

No-Shin-Bone, a Crow Indian, to represent himself with his insignia, and

was extracted from a record kindly communicated by Dr. R. B. Holden,

physician at the Crow Agency, Montana.

[Illustration: FIG. 708.--Medicine bag hung up.]

Fig. 708, drawn by the same hand, shows the same medicine bag

temporarily hung on a forked stick. When the bag is carried on a war

party it is never allowed to touch the ground. Also among the Ojibwa

some of the bags which are considered to have the greatest fetichistic

power are not kept in the lodges, as too dangerous, but are suspended

from trees.

Capt. Bourke (_d_) gives the following account of the medicine hat of

the Apache:

The medicine hat of the old and blind Apache medicine man,

Nan-ta-do-tash, was an antique affair of buckskin, much begrimed

with soot and soiled by long use. Nevertheless it gave life and

strength to him who wore it, enabled the owner to peer into the

future, to tell who had stolen ponies from other people, to foresee

the approach of an enemy, and to aid in the cure of the sick. * *

* This same old man gave me an explanation of all the symbolism

depicted upon the hat, and a great deal of valuable information in

regard to the profession of medicine men, their specialization,

the prayers they recited, etc. The material of the hat, as already

stated, was buckskin. How that was obtained I can not assert

positively, but from an incident occurring under my personal

observation in the Sierra Madre, in Mexico, in 1883, where our

Indian scouts and the medicine men with them surrounded a nearly

grown fawn and tried to capture it alive, as well as from other

circumstances too long to be here inserted, I am of the opinion that

the buckskin to be used for sacred purposes among the Apache must,

whenever possible, be that of a strangled animal, as is the case,

according to Dr. Matthews, among the Navajo.

The body of Nan-ta-do-tash’s cap was unpainted, but the figures

upon it were in two colors, a brownish yellow and an earthy blue,

resembling a dirty Prussian blue. The ornamentation was of the downy

feathers and black-tipped plumes of the eagle, pieces of abalone

shell and chalchihuitl, and a snake’s rattle on the apex.

Nan-ta-do-tash explained that the characters on the medicine

hat meant: A, clouds; B, rainbow; C, hail; E, morning star; F,

the god of wind, with his lungs; G, the black “kan;” H, the great

stars or suns. “Kan” is the name given to their principal gods. The

appearance of the kan himself and of the tail of the hat suggest the

centipede, an important animal god of the Apache. The old man said

that the figures represented the powers to which he appealed for aid

in his “medicine” and the kan upon whom he called for help.

The same author says, op. cit., p. 587:

The Apache, both men and women, wear amulets, called tzidaltai,

made of lightning-riven wood, generally pine or cedar or fir from

the mountain tops, which are highly valued and are not to be

sold. These are shaved very thin and rudely cut in the semblance

of the human form. They are in fact the duplicates, on a small

scale, of the rhombus. Like it they are decorated with incised

lines representing the lightning. Very often these are to be found

attached to the necks of children or to their cradles.

Four of the several winter counts described in the present work unite in

specifying for the year 1843-’44 the recapture of a fetich called the

great medicine arrow.

[Illustration: FIG. 709.--Magic arrow.]

Fig. 709.--In a great fight with the Pawnees the Dakotas captured the

great medicine arrow which had been taken from the Cheyennes, who made

it, by the Pawnees. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1843-’44.

The head of the arrow projects from the bag which contains it. The

delicate waved or spiral lines show that it is sacred.

White-Cow-Killer calls it “The Great-medicine-arrow-comes-in winter.”

[Illustration: FIG. 710.--Magic arrow.]

Battiste Good’s record gives the following for the same year:

“Brought-home-the-magic-arrow winter. This arrow originally belonged to

the Cheyennes, from whom the Pawnees stole it. The Dakotas captured it

this winter from the Pawnees, and the Cheyennes then redeemed it for one

hundred horses.” His sign for the year is shown in Fig. 710. An attempt

was made to distinguish colors by the heraldic scheme, which in this cut

did not succeed. The upper part of the man’s body is sable or black,

the feathers on the arrow are azure or blue, and the shaft, gules or

red. The remainder of the figure is of an undecided color not requiring

specification.

[Illustration: FIG. 711.--Magic arrow.]

Fig. 711.--The great medicine arrow was taken from the Pawnees by the

Oglalas and Brulés, and returned to the Cheyennes to whom it rightly

belonged. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1843-’44. The arrow appears to

be in a case marked over with the lines meaning sacredness.

Another account of a magic arrow and illustrations of other fetichistic

objects are in Chap. IX.

[Illustration:BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY TENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXIII

MANTLE OF INVISIBILITY.]

Pl. XXXIII is a copy of a cloak or mantle made from the skin of a deer,

and covered with various mystic paintings. It was made and used by

the Apaches as a mantle of invisibility, that is, a charmed covering

for spies which would enable them to pass with impunity through the

country, and even through the camp of their enemies. In this instance

the fetichistic power depends upon the devices drawn. A similar but not

identical pictographic fetich or charm is described and illustrated by

Capt. Bourke (_e_) as obtained from a Chicarahua Apache which told when

his ponies were lost, and which brought rain. The symbols show, inter

alia, the rain cloud, and the serpent lightning, the raindrops and the

cross of the winds of the four cardinal points.

Lewis and Clarke (_b_) say that the Chilluckittequaw, a Chinook tribe,

had a “medicine” bag colored red 2 feet long, suspended in the middle

of the lodge. It was held sacred, containing pounded dirt, roots, and

such mysterious objects. From the chief’s bag he brought out fourteen

forefingers of enemies--Snakes--whom he had killed.

A remarkable drawing in an Australian cave, described by Sir George

Grey, in Worsnop, op. cit., was an ellipse, 3 feet in length and 1 foot

10 inches in breadth. The outside line of the painting was of deep blue

color, the body of the ellipse being of a bright yellow dotted over with

red lines and spots, whilst across it ran two transverse lines of blue.

The portion of the painting above described formed the ground, or main

part of the picture, and upon this ground was painted a kangaroo in the

act of feeding; two stone spear heads, and two black balls; one of the

spear heads was flying to the kangaroo, and one away from it; so that

the whole subject probably constituted a sort of charm by which the luck

of an inquirer in killing game can be ascertained. This cave drawing is

copied in Fig. 712.

[Illustration: FIG. 712.--Hunter’s charm. Australia.]

George Turner (_c_) gives account of hieroglyphic taboos, as he calls

them, which are connected with the present subject:

The sea-pike taboo. If a man wished that a sea-pike might run

into the body of the person who attempted to steal, say, his bread

fruits, he would plait some cocoanut leaflets in the form of a

sea-pike, and suspend it from one or more of the trees which he

wished to protect.

The white-shark taboo was another object of terror to a thief.

This was done by plaiting a cocoanut leaf in the form of a shark,

adding fins, etc., and this they suspended from the tree. It was

tantamount to an expressed imprecation, that the thief might be

devoured by the white shark the next time he went to fish.

The cross-stick taboo. This was a piece of any sort of stick

suspended horizontally from the tree. It expressed the wish of

the owner of the tree, that any thief touching it might have a

disease running right across his body, and remaining fixed there

till he died.

The ulcer taboo. This was made by burying in the ground some

pieces of clam shell, and erecting at the spot three or four reeds,

tied together at the top in a bunch like the head of a man. This was

to express the wish and prayer of the owner that any thief might be

laid down with ulcerous sores all over his body.

The death taboo. This was made by pouring some oil into a small

calabash, and burying it near the tree. The spot was marked by a

little hillock of white sand.

The thunder taboo. If a man wished that lightning might strike

any who should steal from his land, he would plait some cocoanut

leaflets in the form of a small square mat, and suspend it from a

tree, with the addition of some white streamers of native cloth

flying. A thief believed that if he trespassed, he, or some of his

children, would be struck with lightning, or perhaps his own trees

struck and blasted from the same cause. They were not, however, in

the habit of talking about the effects of lightning. It was the

thunder they thought did the mischief; hence they called that to

which I have just referred the thunder taboo.

SECTION 5.

RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES.

Many examples of masks, dance ornaments, and fetiches used in ceremonies

are reported and illustrated in the several papers of Messrs. Cushing,

Holmes, and Stevenson in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of

Ethnology. Paintings or drawings of many of them have been found on

pottery, on shells, and on rocks.

An admirable article by Mr. J. Walter Fewkes (_b_) on Tusayan

Pictographs explains many of the petroglyphs of that region as depicting

objects used in dances and ceremonies.

[Illustration: FIG. 713.--Moki masks traced on rocks. Arizona.]

Fig. 713 exhibits drawings of various masks used in dancing, the

characters of which were obtained by Mr. G. K. Gilbert from rocks at

Oakley springs and were explained to him by Tubi, the chief of the

Oraibi Pueblos. They are representations of masks as used by the Moki,

Zuñi, and Rio Grande Pueblos.

Dr. W. H. Corbusier, U. S. Army, writing from Camp Verde, Arizona,

kindly furnished the following account of Yuman ceremonies, in which the

making of sand pictures was prominent:

All the medicine men meet occasionally and with considerable

ceremony “make medicine.” They went through the performance early in

the summer of 1874 on the reservation for the purpose of averting

the diseases with which the Indians were afflicted the summer

previous. In the middle of one of the villages they made a round

ramada, or house of boughs, some 10 feet in diameter, and under it,

on the sand, illustrated the spirit land in a picture about 7 feet

across, made in colors by sprinkling powdered leaves and grass, red

clay, charcoal, and ashes on the smoothed sand. In the center was

a round spot of red clay about 10 inches in diameter, and around

it several successive rings of green and red alternately, each

ring being an inch and a half wide. Projecting from the outer ring

were four somewhat triangular-shaped figures, each one of which

corresponded to one of the cardinal points of the compass, giving

the whole the appearance of a Maltese cross. Around this cross and

between its arms were the figures of men with their feet toward the

center, some made of charcoal, with ashes for eyes and hair, others

of red clay and ashes, etc. These figures were 8 or 9 inches long,

and nearly all of them lacked some portion of the body, some an

arm, others a leg or the head. The medicine men seated themselves

around the picture on the ground in a circle, and the Indians from

the different bands crowded around them, the old men squatting close

by and the young men standing back of them. After they had invoked

the aid of the spirits in a number of chants, one of their number,

apparently the oldest, a toothless, gray-haired man, solemnly arose

and, carefully stepping between the figures of the men, dropped on

each one a pinch of the yellow powder which he took from a small

buckskin bag which had been handed to him. He put the powder on the

heads of some, on the chests of others, and on other parts of the

body, one of the other men sometimes telling him where to put it.

After going all around, skipping three figures, however, he put

up the bag, and then went around again and took from each figure

a large pinch of powder, taking up the yellow powder also, and in

this way collected a heaping handful. After doing this he stepped

back and another medicine man collected a handful in the same way,

others following him. Some of the laymen, in their eagerness to get

some, pressed forward, but were ordered back. But after the medicine

men had supplied themselves the ramada was torn down and a rush was

made by men and boys; handfuls of the dirt were grabbed and rubbed

on their bodies or carried away. The women and children, who were

waiting for an invitation, were then called. They rushed to the

spot in a crowd, and grabbing handfuls of dirt tossed it up in the

air so that it would fall on them, or they rubbed their bodies with

it, mothers throwing it over their children and rubbing it on their

heads. This ended the performance.

According to Stephen Powers (in Contrib. to N. A. Ethnol., III, p. 140),

there is at the head of Potter valley, California, “a singular knoll

of red earth which the Tatu or Hūchnom believe to have furnished the

material for the erection of the original coyote-man. They mix this red

earth into their acorn bread, and employ it for painting their bodies on

divers mystic occasions.”

Descriptions of ceremonies in medicine lodges and in the initiation of

candidates to secret associations have been published with and without

illustrations. The most striking of these are graphic ceremonial

charts made by the Indians themselves, a number of which besides those

immediately following appear in different parts of the present work.

[Illustration: FIG. 714.--Shaman’s lodge. Alaska.]

Fig. 714 was drawn and interpreted by Naumoff, a Kadiak native, in San

Francisco, California, in 1882. It represents the ground plan of a

shaman’s lodge, with the shaman curing a sick man.

The following is the explanation: